Alsu in Wonderland

On Thursday, I got a chance to see the best museum in public engagement I have ever seen-Horniman Museum and Garden. Because of the different types of entertainment like gardens, an aquarium, butterfly house, handing room, musical gallery, a natural history gallery, and others, people compare Horniman with Smithsonian. 

Horniman is not a scientific institution, but it is the best place for families. In every gallery, there is something to do for children and adults. In musical gallery special interactive equipment is installed where you can choose the instrument and listen to how it sounds like. Moreover, there are rooms for performance and playing musical instruments. In the natural history department, there is a huge room with different tasks to do for the children and their parents. In the handing room, people can not only find out more information about the history of the objects but also touch them.

Furthermore, the aim of the museum is not just to attract a big number of visitors but to have an impact on them. In aquarium zone, the space with jellyfish was substituted with plastic bags to make people understand that sooner or later we will destroy our planet with over consumerism. Also, some of the aquariums with living creatures are filled with plastic trash, but it seemed to me that they're doing fine with it.

Today my teenage dream almost came true, I came to Oxford, but unfortunately not to study. Oxford is just amazing! A small city with mixed architecture, you can see an old catholic church opposite H&M. The roads are very narrow, but there are no traffic jams. The majority of people ride bicycles, and instead of car parking, you may observe parking for bicycles. 

First of all, we visited the National history museum. It really impresses with the huge dinosaurs and other remains of non-existing creatures. This museum may be perfect if you come with children.

The Pitt River Museum is right next to it. It reminds a flea market with thousands of objects. You can find everything from tiny accessories to heads of your ancestors. Thus, most of the visitors just pass by not focusing on anything. The labels are not clear at all, but there is a project going on to change it. 

I had a very tasty lunch with the duck pie, mashed potato, small carrots, and other greens. The bar where I had lunch is opposite to the museums. It is really funny that here (unlike in my country) a bar is not a place for alcoholics, but a place where the atmosphere is very British. 

Victoria and Albert Museum is a magical place where you turn from a peasant into royalty. All the halls remind you about the times when there were balls dedicated to VIPs. The museum has a great collection of different parts of the world. At the same time, there are three temporary exhibitions of more contemporary arts which perfectly fits into the content of the building.

The exhibition of Christion Dior is more like a show. Every hall has a theme like wedding dresses, dresses inspired by different countries while traveling and many others. Like, my friend Balqis said: “I will get a heart attack if I stay here longer”. It is just a “wow” time. 

Everyone heard about “Brighton beach”, but no one really knows where it is located. Now I know! 

We took a train, and in an about hour we were in Brighton. The city does not look like London at all. There are narrow roads, a lot of handicraft stores, colorful graffitis. The business card of the city is the palace of King George. the building does not look like English architecture at all. It is eastern (India, Turkey) from outside and Chinese from inside. Even though the king has never been to these countries he loved the beauty of them. Unfortunately, it is not allowed to take pictures in the palace, but believe me, there is so much wealth and beauty in it like you cannot even imagine. 

The Brighton Museum is another museum which is more diverse and open to the public in case of taking pics. The museum consists of the fashion department, department of the stone age, photo gallery, transgender museum, and many others. The transgender museum truly surprised me, it is the first time I see something like this: hormone meds, transplants, private clothes of the real transgenders and their stories which make think. 

Tate Modern was a big dream, unachievable reality, another universe for me...till yesterday. Yaaaaay, I went to Tate yesterday. I was happy as a little kid! 

The museum is located in East London, so we took different lines of the subway. London subway is like a labyrinth, sometimes I think I would walk fewer miles if I just go on feet. 

The building of Tate looks like a former plant or parking zone. You are just surrounded by concrete. During 3 hours we have managed to visit only one temporary and one permanent exhibition. 

The exhibition “In real life” by Olafur Eliasson is the best exhibition I have ever seen. I admire the artists who can mash deep meaning and attractive visual content. The exhibition is mostly dedicated to the environmental issues about which UK citizens are really concerned. If a person does not really care about the Earth then he or she would definitely be attracted by bright colors, extraordinary performance and just a perfect place for a photo shoot.  

Talking about the concern, all the garbage in the UK is separated according to the material, origin, etc. People try to avoid using plastic by preferring cotton shoppers, iron tubes, recyclable materials. 

Tate merchandizing is truly interesting, and you literally want to buy everything before you see the prize. An ordinary t-shirt with Tate logo costs 25 pounds. 

At the end of the day, we dined in a very authentic Italian restaurant where everyone speaks Italian. This is where I tried real pasta, not just Stucciko with Russian macaroni.  

In the morning, we were lucky enough to get into the annual review conference. The director was talking about all the work done during a year, and this work was truly tremendous. The day was spent in the department I was appointed in-Middle East. Firstly, we had a round table with the Head of the Department or Keeper-Jonathan Tubb. The man is very knowledgeable in the sphere of his specialty. After, Gareth made a quick tour in the storages of the department where we could see different exhibits from different time periods and from different materials. 

Also, we visited the tablets room which is located on the ground floor of the Victorian library. We saw amazing pieces there which are dated hundreds and hundreds of years. Some of them are like little puzzles which have to be attached to each other. Then we went upstairs to see an actual library. Finally, I saw a good selection of books about Central Asia, mostly in Russian. 

The most amazing part of the day was ahead! After a long tour of the new Islamic hall by Venetia Porter, I was invited to meet a delegation from Uzbekistan. The delegation consisted of the minister of foreign affairs and the ambassador of Uzbekistan in the UK. It was truly a great honor and coincidental luck to meet such influential people of our country in the walls of the BM.  

The BM is a huge labyrinth, there are lots of stairs all around, doors which are not available for the mass, rooms for elite and many other secret spaces about which an ordinary visitor cannot even think.  In the first part of the day, we have covered the topic of collection management. While discussing the standards of storage I could not forget the memorial house-museum of Aybek. The BM has perfect conditions for storing their enormous collections, and they still try to find ways to update the rooms. 

I was lucky enough to visit the actual storage of Egypt and Sudan. Every material has its own way of preservation. For example, some of the papyruses are stored vertically, some of them horizontally, but all between two glasses molded from pests. At the moment, the museum has a huge work of standardizing the coding of all the exhibits (since the system is different at different departments, and it is different at different periods of time). Same is happening in Uzbekistan right now, all the museums are struggling with transferring all the data to the electronic system.  I was very surprised to see that some of the items like jewelry have the number right on the surface, which looks unesthetic. In the room of pottery, I was about to puke because of a very specific smell. When I asked about it, the collection manager said that before it was a room for mummies and the smell of dead bodies is still here. 

I just cannot imagine how passionate a person should be about the work he or she does in order to work in the basement with a lack of air surrounded by old or dead objects. 

The second part of the day was even more impressive. We had a lecture about the libraries and archives, which were followed by the tour to these places. The library of the BM is scattered around the museum and is divided into different sections. We were taken to the archeology and anthropology department where we saw the books which are invaluable, some of them are even older than my great grandparents. Afterward, we were given a task to find a book related to our home country...I could not find anything. I was very sad and confused, I could not understand the reason: is our history poor or we just do not present the books to other countries or nobody is interested in Central Asia. After walking between aisles for half an hour I finally decided to talk to the senior librarian -Antony Loveland (cool surname). He explained to me that most of the exhibits and books the BM has are from the countries which were their colonies before. And he kind of reminded me about the Russian Empire. 

I was also surprised that the BM does not have its own publishing, and most of the books are published in Thames and Hudson. At some point in history, the BM closed its publishing, but most of the people working there right now think that it was a mistake. The board of trustees is seriously thinking to have it in the future plans, we will see how it will work. 

What do you think about when you hear the word archives? I think about some dusty basement with piles of paper all around. But it turned to be that the BM archives are located in the former public British library which looks freaking amazing. The library was established in 1753, and it looks exactly the same today. There are many archive documents stuffed on the shelves such as property plans, political documents, and even the books of the library visitors. It was terrific to see the registration of such people like Karl Marx and Oscar Wilde. 

The end of the day was full of adventure with my new friends. We went to the London Eye, saw homeless musicians, used London underground, and ate Indian food.

Today the morning was full of emotions and new discoveries. Kusama Barnett who was the head of volunteers at BM (currently there are 200 volunteers working in the museum conducting different exhibitions), gave a tour of the highlights of the museum. During the exhibition, we saw such iconic pieces as Rosetta Stone, Easter Island moai, Egyptian mummies and sculptures, Parthenon sculptures and many others.  When we were in the Egyptian department, Kusama saw my reaction towards the display of a dead body. I expressed my opinion about such kind of display. I am absolutely against such preservation of the dead body. A person who is laying right now at the BM did not give any permission to be shown as a monkey in a zoo. Well, maybe there are some people who are curious about such kind of stuff, but I personally think that it is better to be buried, though nobody came back after the death to tell us what is right and what is wrong. Also, we have seen a Warren Cup dated back to the Roman Empire. The cup depicted a scene of two males having sex. It was a very controversial issue in our group since most of the members seem to be Muslims. However, Kusama made it clear that this (same gender relationship) has been existing from the very beginning of the human kind existence, and the BM is even going to have a new exhibition dedicated to this topic. I have noticed that this is a very common topic in the UK, and all the people support the LGBTQ community.

The British Museum has lots of department which are rich with exhibits from around the world. Some of the countries are willing to get back their art pieces like Egypt, Greece, China, and many others. Talking about the title of today’s blog, the BM has a very small collection of British heritage, and this is the reason why some people are misguided by its name. 

I woke up at 3 am in the morning though I was very tired. I forced myself to sleep a couple of hours more. At 5, it was already unbearable to stay in bed. I looked out of the window and saw rain, such rain you can see at the end of autumn in our country, it is like tiny snow. I wore the warmest clothes (yeah, I did not expect such cold weather), and decided to walk around to find a raincoat and an umbrella. Asked Siri to show me the way, and here she understood me immediately, or my English got better or the Internet connection is not that poor (here you can have real 4G not that fake LTE).  London is magical in the morning, there is no hustle and bustle on the streets, and you can fully enjoy the magic of the city. Every building is a piece of art here, and the government is not trying to destroy small old houses, instead, the conserve them as historical heritage. Most of the old private houses look like the houses from Hobbit or Harry Potter.  Many people truly care about their health. While walking I saw many joggers. Besides that, I saw many homeless people lying under blankets next to entrances.  During the weekend all the outlet stores work from 12 till 6. As you have understood I could not buy anything, but I discovered the main shopping street in London where I am going to return later.  Also, there are many pride flags hanging on the buildings. I guess London is the center of LGBT. I saw tattoos, makeups, clothes with the colorful rainbow flag.  On the way back home I saw a lady riding a bicycle and screaming about desperation, sadness. I really wanted to help her but saw the indifference in the eyes of other people. Here I understood how different my culture is...

The British Museum covers all the expenses of my training including the flights. It happened to be that I had a flight through Istanbul. When I got onto the airplane I was very surprised: the plane was big (3 lines of seats), each passenger could use a personal screen where he or she can watch movies and TV shows, listen to music, play games and even see live of the view of the plane. During 2 flights I have watched 5 movies, which I would not watch during a month due to the lack of time. According to the schedule, I had only 2 hours between the flights in Istanbul, but my first flight was delayed, and that is why I was forced to run to my second flight. Plus, a new Istanbul airport is huge and astonishing, I tried to enjoy the beauty while running towards the gate B2. Most of the Turkish do not speak English, but they were friendly to use their phones to understand me and to help me.   My second flight was full of joy, Lady Gaga music and sinking in the clouds, which looked like whipped cream. I could not sleep because I did not want to skip a moment of the wonder presented by life. I spent another 2 hours at Gatwick airport. First of all, at both airports, all the exits were occupied so the passengers should wait on the plane. Secondly, non-EU people should go to a different “snake” line in passport control. Thirdly, I am always unlucky with my baggage. I was waiting for it for 30-60 minutes, I even thought that they could not a manager to transfer it to another flight, and I have to fill the form about the lost and patiently wait. It came, I was so happy to see this huge red bag coming to me from nowhere.  Finally, I got out and saw Rebecca who is the manager in the International department of BM. She was the first person I talked to in London, a very nice lady who was caring enough to meet me at Gatwick. All other participants of the program came to Heathrow airport which is not that far unlike Gatwick.  When we came to Schafer House I was given different instructions by the senior fellow of ITP, and finally, I was at home, at my new home 🏡 

Let’s start with the reason why I started blogging.  My name is Alsu, I am a project manager of education development department in a very young, but very promising organization - Arts and Culture Development Foundation under the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Uzbekistan. After a year of working there, at the age of 25 I was selected as a participant of the International Training Program at the British Museum. I was excited, but at the same time, I could not believe that it was happening to me. But here I am in London, in my cozy room “typing” my emotions...