Creative Collections
heritage + Lived experience + creativity = inclusion
The Creative Collections project in 2024 brought together a group of learning disabled adults to use their words to describe objects in the Lewes Castle and Barbican House Museum.
The materials produced within this project included posters on permanent display in the museum, an activity prompt sheet for all visitors to access and a selection of digital material including audio recordings created by Dominic Steel, Harry Fairchild, Susannah Hall, Hannah Gibson and Sophie Halas.
wELCOME TO THE MUSEUM
"Welcome to the museum. Once upon a time in ancient Lewes, there was a museum full of wonderful items found in the Roman Saxon periods. The museum is full of ghosts and objects. One of the knights is me, Knight Konstantin, and this is my helmet.
I died in battle in 1447. I was serving the Queen and country and died on duty that day, fighting a battle against the Roman Catholic Church. Many knights and dukes died that day and I am lucky that I live on as a ghost to tell this tale.
There are many artifacts going from AD to BC. When I am awake at night, I make sure that all the artifacts are saved from theft. I wear my helmet with pride and spend hours talking to all my fellow ghosts about their deaths and the crimes they committed. Enjoy or visit."
THE KNUCKER TALE
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"A jealous husband Ronnie killed his wife Eve at age of 39 with his hunting axe enraged because she was having an affair with his best friend Angus.
The two coins represented how little she was worth due to her unfaithfulness to her husband and to the gods. The husband later got whacked over the head by a bottle, and Angus in despair jumped into the knucker hole. Eve's best friend Olivia lived on to tell this gruesome and woeful tale."
sHIP IN THE BOTTLE
"Feels glassy. Cold. I can see a boat and mud . Feels old.
And the boats very, very delicate. Charming Mary.
Charming Mary got caught up in a storm.
Oh no!!! The boat's collapsed.
And then there was a bottle bobbing along the sea
somehow the bottle sucked in The Mary
and it washed up on a Pacific island
some travellers found the boat and brought it to Lewes"
a REMARKABLE PIECE OF JEWELLERY
"Saxon period. Nice piece of jewellery. Not quite sure what kind of piece of jewellery it is. Looks like a diamond of some sort. I think it's, it's priceless. Priceless. A Saxon queen of some sort or a Saxon lady who knows?
But, it's a very nice piece of jewellery.
I would like to know who it belonged to in the Saxon period, was it even a man's? Who knows? It feels.. light. It's got a hole in the middle and it looks as though it would have cost quite a bit of money. Very powerful, yes.
It could be the symbol of something. It could be the symbol of something?
Unless in the Viking times when the Vikings came along and raided they must have knocked it off a man or woman in a raid, one of the Vikings might have trodden it into the earth. Bit this is a remarkable piece of jewellery."