This Week

This Week

. . . we're at the Cinema Museum in South London, another small museum that's threatened with closure. It's the creation of geeks and enthusiasts and celebrates cinemas before cinemas got modern in the 1980's. Human beings need pasts. What will we do when these 'thing-worlds' all go? (Swipe to the right to read more.)
Lost Worlds And Pennies From Heaven By Rachel Morris Lost Worlds And Pennies From Heaven By Rachel Morris

Lost Worlds And Pennies From Heaven By Rachel Morris

To the Cinema Museum in South London, me not knowing what to expect other than it's threatened with closure. After many wrong turnings round Elephant and Castle I fall into a lost world - a world before 1980's multiplexes and Hollywood blockbusters - a world of Art Deco Odeons and huge projectors and old-fashioned film stars . . . Click on the image to read more
PS And By The Way . . .

PS And By The Way . . .

for a slice of museum history, try James Delbourgo's new book on Hans Sloane. Did you know Hans Sloane brought home a live iguana, a huge snake and an alligator that he kept in a salt water tub on the ship's forecastle. The snake nearly made it home until he escaped and made for the hammocks in the servants' quarters . . .

We hope you’ve enjoyed the Museum of Marco Polo and that it’s got you thinking about Time, Memory, History, Stories, Museums and the role of imagination and creativity in the making of museums, whether they are real, lightly fictionalised or utterly imaginary. We hope it’s also got you wondering why some museums are so poetic and how it is that such solidly three-dimensional things should be as much about ideas as they are about things. And finally we hope that it’s got you wanting to speak up for museums and against the current funding cuts, since museums only do on a big scale what each of us does on a tiny scale which is to use things and memories to make sense of the wonderful, terrible Past. And without the Past we are nothing.