Scotland Creates: A Sense of Place, was a two-year project (2012-2014) working with four partner museums across Scotland to give young people the opportunity to work alongside curators and other creative partners.

We worked with Scottish Ballet and Live Music Now to create workshops and events. It’s all very cool.

The best part about all of this is that the content of the exhibitions and events was entirely up to the creative minds of our volunteer groups from High Schools, Colleges and Youth Organisations across the country, working with museum staff to bring their own unique perspective of what it means to live in Scotland today.

Aside from being involved in all stages of the curatorial process - from selecting the objects, to marketing and organising the events themselves - our lovely volunteers also made creative responses to the exhibits using whatever artistic medium they darn well pleased because, you know, they’re young and wacky that way! 

The lucky museums partnered to make up this creative project were:

• The McLean Museum and Art Gallery in Greenock
• The McManus: Dundee’s  Art Gallery and Museum
• Museum Nan Eilean at Sgoil Lionacleit in Benbecula, and
• The Dick Institute in Kilmarnock.

Scotland Creates: A Sense of Place organised a mind-blowing exhibition with objects selected by young people and the partner museums from the National Museum’s collections. The exhibitions incorporated the local identity of our five locations, then all five museums joined together to create a final mega-exhibition held here at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh in 2014.

Stay classy, and also tuned!

Aileen
Project volunteer

Museum Takeover Day

Thursday 28 November 2013 was Takeover Day at National Museum of Scotland, part of a national initiative from Kids in Museums to celebrate the contribution made by children and young people to museums. Special events included the launch of the three animated films written and directed by our Scotland Creates volunteers, performances of science show Alex’s Amazing Adventures by Holy Rood High School and a song-writing workshop with Scottish rock band Miniature Dinosaurs.

Animated short films

In 2014, our Science and Technology galleries played host to some innovative animated films that cast selected objects in a whole new light.

During 2013, our Scotland Creates volunteers worked with curators from our Science and Technology department to investigate objects on display in our Connect and Shaping Our World galleries. These three films, made with animator Cameron Duguid, were written and directed by our volunteers and display their unique perspective on three iconic objects.

An Interview with Dolly the sheep

This video, written and directed by our volunteers, was shown in the Connect gallery at National Museum of Scotland alongside Dolly the sheep.

Bionic arm vs iPad

This video, written and directed by our volunteers, was shown in the Shaping our World gallery at National Museum of Scotland alongside the first bionic arm.

A Dynamic Top

This video, written and directed by our volunteers, was shown in the Shaping our World gallery at National Museum of Scotland alongside James Clerk Maxwell's dynamic top.

Museum virals

One of the aims of the Scotland Creates project was to encourage young people to use technology to connect, collaborate and get creative. So we asked volunteers from each of the five partners to create short films to promote their museums to other young people.

To kickstart the process, we joined forces with digital agency Sound Delivery and documentary film maker Suzanne Cohen, who ran an action-packed two-day film-making workshop with our young volunteers, to equip them with the skills to storyboard their films and create all the assets, from film and photography to animation and artwork.

You can read all about the workshops on our blog.

And here are the films! Many thanks to Suzanne Cohen and Sound Delivery, and to Camden CLC (City Learning Centre) for their support.

See some of the films made during the workshops on Vimeo

National Museum of Scotland - Not your average date!

Film by Sam Fairbairn, Aileen Miller, Callum Murphy and Steven Thornton.
Music: ‘The Elevator Bossa Nova’
Composed and performed by Bensound

The Dick Institute - Rappy Burns

Robert 'rappy' Burns - Liam Howie
Burns Bird #1 - Elisha Bennison
Burns Bird #2 - Samantha Bolan
Cameraman - Scott Pryde
Music - Scott McNeil
Vocals - Liam Howie

McLean Museum and Art Gallery - Bringing the past to life!

Film by Paul Maxwell.

The McManus - What makes a museum?

Film by Sara McGovern, Roberto Popa and other members of the McManus Youth Action Group. 
With thanks to Jon Gill.

Museum nan Eilean - Do you dare visit?

Film by Ruairidh Macleod and Zoee Macinnes.
Music: ‘Ghost Story’ by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Scotland Creates exhibition launch

The final Scotland Creates: A Sense of Place exhibition opened on Friday 9 May at National Museum of Scotland, finishing on Sunday 31 August. The exhibition was a celebration of the project as a whole, drawing together elements from each partner museums' individual exhibitions and associated work.

Scotland Creates two years on

In 2016, we caught up with some of the Scotland Creates volunteers to see how the project has affected their lives. Here's what they had to say: