Monthly Archives: May 2020

How can 200 year old paintings get us talking about climate change?

by Jenny Gaschke, curator of Fine Art The coronavirus pandemic has triggered an unexpected improvement in UK air quality as daily carbon emissions have fallen. We can feel the difference in Bristol too. A month before the UK lockdown began, climate …

Penelope Chetwode and ‘the perfect ADC’ (personal assistant)

by Pat Ellingham, Archives volunteer Our volunteer, Pat Ellingham, found this story of the young Penelope Chetwode (later Lady Betjeman) in the photograph albums of Geoffrey Kellie, part of the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection. There’s a defin…

Unlocking Our Sound Heritage: Evacuees in St Levan

by Cara Powell, Unlocking Our Sound Heritage volunteer Cara Powell is completing her BA in History at the University of the West of England. The Unlocking Our Sound Heritage team were lucky enough to have her as a volunteer in 2019-20. Cara worked on a nu…

Birds and words: How to make an origami crane

by Ailsa Richardson, engagement officer for older people Although we are unable to run Creative Cafés at the museum right now, we have sent out some birds and words for participants to hang in their windows. These are individual gifts for residents l…

Dying Matters: A grief trail

by Lisa Graves, curator of world cultures This week is Dying Matters awareness week – a national campaign to encourage people to talk about death, dying or grief. Everything has changed. Our daily lives are transformed, possibly forever. We are al…

Listen to 40 years of art & artists from the Arnolfini archive

by David, Sam and Philippa, from the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project The first collection held by Bristol Archives that Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) digitised was from Arnolfini, Bristol’s contemporary arts centre. 40 years of artists’ ta…

Bristol’s VE Day celebrations brought to life

On Friday 8 May, we mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day – the end of the Second World War in Europe. On Tuesday 8 May 1945, celebrations took place across the country and Bristol was no exception. Two different audio-visual archives from Brist…