On Saturday 1 October
2016, I took part in Mansfield Museums’ first ever Fun Palaces event. “Fun
Palaces is an ongoing campaign supporting culture at the heart of every
community, with an annual weekend of arts and science action created by, for
and with local people.” The Fun Palaces campaign began in 2014 by Co-Directors
Stella Duffy and Sarah-Jane Rawlings, and producers Hannah Lambert and Kirsty
Lothian. Their fabulous tagline is ‘Everyone an Artist, Everyone
a Scientist.’
When Mansfield Museum’s Community
Participation Officer, Sally Evans, put a call out for local people to get
involved I couldn’t wait to contribute as I feel passionately about engaging
local communities with cultural events.
Mansfield Museum, Mansfield Palace Theatre and The Old Library were brimming with fun, free Arts and
Science activities for all ages. The Nottinghamshire branch of the British Science Association demonstrated how to make balloon kebabs, there were dancing
robots, live music, animals from White Post Farm and many more exciting things
to see and explore.
My activity took the form of a low tech animation workshop that explored
the theory of persistence of vision via the creation of a thaumatrope (a
toy that combines two images to create an early
form of animation). Thaumatropes are easy to
make and really effective. In short, visitors could get a taste of
animation by creating a magic moving picture. The
activity beautifully married Art and Science together in one activity, full STEAM
ahead!
