A Visit to Museum Essay: British & Pitt-Rivers

A Visit to Museum: Introduction

British Museum is one of the most popular museums in England. It is also known as a special museum because it contains various objects, historical pieces of evidence, and ancient buildings. While British Museum is quite popular among art circles, Pitt-Rivers museum has also a substansial collections regarding world history and art. In this assignment, i will present you a comparison and review of both museum visits.

Body Paragraphs

British Museum contains more historical artifacts than other museums in England, and it is organized in four sections to show the historical artifacts in the right order. These sections are the department of ancient works, coins and medals section, prints and drawings section, and humanity museum (ethnography department). In the ancient works section, there are collections from different cultures such as Egypt, West Asia, Ancient Greek, Ancient Rome, BC England, medieval England, and eastern collections. In the coins and medals section, there are lots of coins and medals from a different timeline. Moreover, in the humanity section, some mummified persons belong to Egyptian culture, which is very interesting because they are tombs of Egyptian pharaohs. On the east side of the museum, there are works from medieval England and Renaissance. In this section, there are drawings of kings and queens, and there are swords and crosses. In addition, there is a library on the entrance floor, which is made by King George the second. The library is an important part of the museum.

On the other hand, the Pitt-Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford is one of the foremost ethnographic museums. The Pitt-Rivers Museum has two floors, and all the artificial are shown on these two floors. There are not any sections, and all the artificials are shown behind glass. Pitt-Rivers Museum contains a lot of historical artificial. There are drawings, sculptures, wooden sculptures, pieces of jewelry, coins, medals, mummy coffins, masks, boats, clothes, and vases from a different culture and different historical timeline. Also, it is a really small museum. However, it contains a lot of historical artificials. Pitt-Rivers Museum is built in 1884 by the donation of Augustus Pitt-Rivers.

In addition, Pitt-Rivers Museum contained 20,000 artificials in 1885, and in 2020, Pitt-Rivers Museum contains 50,000 artificials with the donation of collections. The masks in the museum represent Asia culture, and they are very interesting. However, the second floor is smaller than the entrance floor. The second floor includes African works, Ancient Asia works, wooden works, and stoneworks. These works are from BC cultures, and they all are unique. In addition, stoneworks represent ancient Indian gods, and there are stone stories in which they complete one another. However, the Pitt-Rivers museum does not contain crosses, and the only religion-related objects are from different ancient nations such as Asia, Egypt, Africa, and India.

Museums are important meeting points for marginalized communities because museums are providing workshops with these communities. They are aiming to provide educational programs for these marginalized communities because Museums are outside of gender, sexuality, and nationalism. Therefore, they are welcoming all genders, sexual identities, and nations. Both The British Museum and Pitt-River Museum have programs for marginalized communities. Marginalized communities are facing issues in their daily life. Moreover, they have been excluded by other members of the community because of their nations, sexuality, and gender. Especially, LGBTQ+ individuals are facing problems with both society and themselves, so some workshops are aiming to provide self-expression such as Pitt-Rivers Museum become visible allies with the LGBTQ+ community.

The program is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and they spend £91,200 for the program. The project worked with local, national, and international partners to explore the global diversity of sexual and gender identities. The project aims to be "offering alternative understandings from people with different identities as well as identifying human histories that are unrepresented as a result of intolerance. This is so that no individual or group feels excluded from the museum because of their sexuality or gender, and so that all visitors – however, they might identify themselves – can understand humanity better" ("Beyond the Binary" para. 2). In addition, the project includes a community-focussed acquisition program for LGBTQ+ cultural and historical artifacts. The Pitt-Rivers Museum highly values marginalized community's projects. Moreover, Pitt-Rivers Museum has another project with the LGBTQ+ community, which is called providing space for youth groups. Therefore Pitt-Rivers Museum provides a space every month for LGBTQ+ youth groups to meet, socialize, and be together.

Pitt-Rivers Museum highly values to be a meeting point for different nations such as Africans and Arab communities. Pitt-Rivers Museum has a project for Windrush group, and they were celebrating the arrival of the African Caribbean community in Britain on HMT Windrush in 1948. The project's name is A Nice Cup Of Tea.

A Nice Cup of Tea uses museum collections to explore the arts, and the effects of different cultures on society, how society affects them, and how ordinary people have achieved change. In addition, Pitt-Rivers Museum has another project about the different nations. The project's name is Multaka. The volunteers of Multaka project work on collections, and they are researching, learning, and discovering other perspectives about these collections. In addition, Multaka is an Arabic word, and it means a meeting point.

The British Museum considers itself as the best meeting point for marginalized communities. Also, the British Museum has projects for the LGTBQ+ community, and the project provides workshops for the LGBTQ+ community. It developed a program that is called Object Journey. This project provides observation of different cultures' heritage. For instance, First Object Journey focused on Somali heritage, and ten adults joined the project and worked on Somali Heritage. They attended many workshops and resources about Somali heritage. Moreover, the second Object Journey project was Kiribati. The British Museum became partners with Kiribati Tungaru Association (KTA). The Kiribati project aimed to explore Kiribati collection and Kiribati history. Therefore Kiribati project provides to promote Kiribati culture with historical objects. In addition, projects paid attention to current Kiribati problems such as climate change, rising sea levels, and the subsequent loss of Kiribati land. Eventually, The British Museum highly values to protect different nation's cultures.

Both The British Museum and Pitt-Rivers Museum see their organization as a meeting point. However, Pitt-River Museum seems to provide more projects than the British Museum. In addition, Pitt-Rivers Museum's projects with LGBTQ+ communities are more detailed than the British Museum. The projects in the Pitt-Rivers Museum benefit the interest of marginalized communities. The Pitt-Rivers Museum is helping these communities to express themselves in the organization. However, both museums are aiming to meet the national collections to the nation members such as the Kibirati Project in the British Museum and A Nice Cup Of Tea Project in the Pitt-Rivers Museum. Moreover, Pitt-Rivers Museum has more projects with the communities than the British projects. The Pitt-Rivers Museum foresees the needs of the marginalized communities, and the museum becomes allies with these communities for the projects.

British Museum provides similar promises to the marginalized communities. Their work of these projects enables them to engage with communities that reflect the Museum's London and global context and to enable community knowledge and diverse lived experiences to be visible and represented in the museum and beyond. The British Museum is trying to protect the heritage of different nations. In addition, their workshops with different national heritages are shown in the museum. Therefore, participants become a part of the museum. In addition, their collection is bigger than the Pitt-Rivers Museum. In addition, the British Museum contains more national heritages than Pitt-Rivers Museum. Eventually, both the British Museum and Pitt-Rivers Museum are important meeting points for communities because both museums are providing to engage with historical heritage. In addition, both museums are improving awareness of their projects in society. Therefore, these projects provide to the communities to become part of protecting national heritage. Besides, both museums can be seen as the bridge between past and present. Eventually, both museum ensures the future by their partnership with marginalized communities.

A Visit to Museum Essay Conclusion

To sum up, this paper focused on comparing two museums: The British Museum and Pitt-River Museum. Therefore, this paper examined both museum and their projects with marginalized communities. Moreover, it examined both The British Museum and Pitt-River Museum's approach to these projects, the benefits of the project to the marginalized communities. Both museums are aiming to connect national heritage with communities, and both museums are important institutions for protecting historical artifacts. As a result, both of them are doing great works with marginalized communities. They are helping LGBTQ+ communities to meet and self-express themselves.

References

Beyond the Binary. (n.d.). Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://prm.ox.ac.uk/beyond-the-binary