Community Projects

The Cuming Museum works closely with communities, making our collections more accessible and offering a variety of learning opportunities. This page charts some recent and current projects. Information about other projects can be found on our Previous Exhibitions page.

From the Elephant to Saturn

Throughout August 2005 three summer holiday clubs from the local area participated in our Elephant to Saturn Science and Art programme. Holiday clubs were Rockingham Estate Play Association, Michael Faraday After School Club and Camberwell Summer Holiday Club. The activity programme was funded by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council.

Children attended weekly sessions over four weeks which were run by a scientist and an artist. The sessions were themed around space travel and the solar system. Activities included making telescopes, designing and building space buggies using K-nex, and making space ships from craft materials. The sessions culminated with children creating planet landscapes and filming their space buggies landing.

Find instructions for two of our most successful Elephant to Saturn activities here.

Find out more about astronomy and space science.

Bright lights and magic lanterns

Throughout August 2004, summer holiday clubs, including Rockingham Estate Play Association and Michael Faraday After School Club, visited the museum to take part in workshops relating to the science of light. The project was funded through the Royal Society's COPUS fund.  Find out more about the project and what we learnt with the project toolkit (414 kb).

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Journeys

This project enabled a group of learners from Southwark College to visit a wide range of museums and libraries and record their experiences.  Visits included the Cuming Museum as well as the National Maritime Museum, Museum of London, London Transport Museum and a guided tour of London Bridge Underground Station.

"I saw so many things on the trips. I liked all of the museums because it was a new experience - I had never been before."  Domingas

"There is an abundance of things I have liked. I had never seen a carriage so near before, and trust me it was amazing. The drum made of animal skin from China at the Cuming Museum was amazing. Back in the days at home my father would scrape ox skin with hot water and we used to eat it, and it was interesting to see how other countries used it differently."  Andrew

Visits to the Cuming Museum including object handling and creative writing sessions. This is a joint poem created by the group and inspired by a mysterious museum object.

The Box - a group poem

I found a box in the middle of the table.
It was...
Square, old, brown, marked, wooden
It had...
Handles, two hinges
Has it got anything inside it?
What's inside?
Money, treasure, something old
Gifts for the students, toys, antiques
Spices,
Maybe books?
Maybe shoes?
Maybe gold?
I'm going to open the box.
I feel.....
Scared, maybe there's something inside
Treasure?
Maybe empty.
Nervous, curious, weird
Is it a million pounds?
We opened the box.
It's beautiful. It's a million butterflies
Different colours and sizes
It's nice, Can they fly?
Very delicate, quite smelly
I remember catching butterflies like this in my hands in Jamaica.

Creative Journeys - from Cuming to castle and back again

During this project we worked with the Castle Day Centre, a local mental health support centre. We ran a programme of art workshops for clients. For each workshop a number of objects and artworks from the Cuming and South London Gallery collections were taken along. The art works produced by the clients were hung alongside objects and artworks in our temporary exhibition Creative Journeys.

Through this project we have built a strong relationship with the Castle Day Centre and have already involved the group in another art project. 

Creative Journeys was funded by the London Museums Agency under their New Audiences programme. The art workshops ran from October to December 2003. The exhibition ran from January 15 to March 13 2004.

Find out more about the project and what we learnt about working with the Castle Day Centre in our Toolkit (257 kb).

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Contact us

The Cuming Museum
Tel: 020 7525 2332
Fax: 020 7525 2345
cuming.museum@southwark.gov.uk
Old Walworth Town Hall
155-157 Walworth Road
London
SE17 1RY