The Gallery objects come to school
Mary Greg’s cabinet of curiosities, bring the gallery to your classroom
Let us bring Manchester Art Gallery to you and provide an object handling session for you and your class or group.
Mary Greg was a collector, interested in pre-industrial handmade objects. She wanted to preserve examples of traditional artisan skills so that children could understand how things were made. She left a vast collection of objects to Manchester Art Gallery that include the everyday, the bizarre and the obsolete, the decorative, the homemade and the manufactured. We’ve created this travelling box of curiosities to bring Mary Greg’s collection to you.
As well as being an inspiring resource for schools, the objects provide a brilliant stimulus for creative and reminiscence projects with adult groups. They encourage collective conversations, stir the imagination and generate stories.
The power of objects
"The objects really sparked the children's imaginations regardless of ability. Those with Special Educational Needs were able to create really imaginative and creative responses due to the high quality of the stimuli and input." Teacher
"This activity is outstanding for speaking and listening strands of English - especially story writing." Teacher
"The session links well with the Victorians study in the National Curriculum for History." Teacher
Booking
We can bring the Mary Greg collection of curiosities to your school or centre and lead an object handling session for you and your class.
To make a booking or find out about our costs, just get in touch.
Tel: 0161 235 8842
Email: mageducation@manchester.gov.uk
Mary Greg's cabinet of curiosities was commissioned from a desire to explore imaginative responses to Mary's objects and to allow people to handle the collection. It was designed, co-curated and constructed by hedsor, artists Karl and Kimberly Foster. hedsor's practice is rooted in the use of objects to allow people to develop the tools to play an active role in interpreting artworks. Please visit their website to find out more about their inspiring approaches to engaging with museum and gallery collections, www.objectdialoguebox.com/
