Water Cabinet in Material Flow - Featuring...

Water Cabinet is coming out for Material Flow exhibition curated by Patricia Brien at Museum In The Park with a debut guest exhibition Drawer 7 : Cochineal by Anna Cady

 

The MMM ‘Water’ cabinet was created as a collaborative exhibition piece, conceived in association with ‘Walking The Land’ and Museum in the Park and funded by the Cotswold Conservation Board.

The cabinet is themed around stories of water from the Stroud area – past and present – and the interrelation between geography, geology and place. As visitors explore its drawers they discover a mixture of historic items, created curiosities and snippets of knowledge, memories and feelings about water and place. This cabinet marked the beginning of our experiment with playfully fusing fact and fiction in our heritage themed installations.

The beautiful mahogany cabinet which houses the miniature museum is on permanent loan from Museum in the Park. Together with Collections Officer Alexia Clark we selected items and images from museum collections, which have a connection with water, to be displayed in the cabinet.

The cabinet contains eight perspex-topped drawers that activate two vintage sound systems and internal lighting when opened. One of the drawers is a self-contained fishing game, which gives opportunity for visitors to trigger different sounds and stories as they fish. The bottom two drawers invite visitor response: one is ready to display loaned or donated items, the other contains cards and a post box for thoughts, stories and memories.

Other feature drawers in the cabinet include a geology drawer, invention drawer, a drawer for local finds and an ‘unnatural history’ drawer. A recent evolution of the ‘Water’ cabinet sees the addition of an artist’s drawer which has featured a guest collaboration with local artist Anna Cady on the theme of cochineal.

This piece has strong connections with Stroud and is quite compact and portable. We have taken the cabinet into schools to facilitate creative storytelling workshops, and it has been exhibited several times at the Museum in the Park and local charity events. In 2019 The ‘Water’ cabinet was exhibited as part of the Material Flow  event – linking heritage, water, landscape and place.