London 2012 Cultural Olympiad

Benefitting from a brilliant partnership with Museums Sheffield, Freeman College students took part in Stories of the World, which is part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

The Stories of the World exhibitions get young people working with curators, filmmakers, artists, writers and musicians to explore and reinterpret museum collections, giving a new perspective on the stories that tell us about our place in the world. It is the biggest ever museum project.

Our students with learning disabilities from Freeman College had a major role in the project Precious Cargo, which is a project led by young people and inspired by Yorkshires World collections. Freeman Colleges part in Precious Cargo began when a group of students and tutors visited Weston Park for a handling session.

The students were invited to handle and explore artefacts from the museums World Cultures collection; a collection looking at the wealth of different cultures that exist, drawing precious items together from Africa, Eastern Asia and Europe. Precious Cargo looks at the things people treasure and how they eventually arrived in Sheffield.

Freeman Colleges specialist craft based curriculum gives students an insight into the techniques used to make the works in the World Cultures collection, so students were able to share their knowledge of traditional hand crafts.

After the handling session Freeman College students returned to their workshops and worked with copper, silver, gilding, ceramics, felt and weaving to make new work in response to the World Cultures collection. For example, second year Saskia made a hand-forged copper bowl and based the decorations on a motif from a Native American plant fibre basket.

Examples of the students new work will be on display at Butcher Works Gallery at Freeman College.

The exhibition will be launched and opened by Sheffields Lord Major on Tuesday 20^th March 2012 at 3PM, and will run until the 5^th of June. In addition, Precious Cargo ties into a major redisplay of Weston Parks Treasures Gallery opening on 24^th March 2012.