{"id":3979,"date":"2019-09-25T10:59:12","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T10:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/?p=3979"},"modified":"2023-03-22T13:02:16","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T13:02:16","slug":"inside-st-fagans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/2019\/09\/25\/inside-st-fagans\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside St Fagans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Elen
Elen Phillips (right) with peace activist, Thalia Campbell, at an event to celebrate International Women\u2019s Day at St Fagans. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Following St Fagans Museum\u2019s recent success in the 2019\nMuseum of the Year competition, we asked one of the principal curators about\nthe reason for the success and the Museum\u2019s links with Cardiff University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of July, St Fagans National History Museum\nwon the Art Fund Museum of the Year prize, beating four other competitors from\nthe United Kingdom, including V&A Dundee and HMS Belfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The open-air Museum opened to the public in 1948 and now\nincludes over 40 exhibitions showing the development of Wales\u2019 history and\nculture, from prehistoric times up to the present day, including: round houses\nfrom the Iron Age, a Court of the Princes of Wales from the 12th century,\nOakdale Workmen\u2019s Institute and St Fagans Castle itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The principal curator for modern and community history, and an alumna of Cardiff University, Elen Phillips (MA 2005), described the award as the \u2018highlight\u2019 of the year<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The principal curator for modern and community history, and an alumna of Cardiff University, Elen Phillips (MA 2005), described the award as the \u2018highlight\u2019 of the year, especially after the museum completed the \u2018Making History\u2019 redevelopment in 2018, worth \u00a330 million, that transformed the visitor experience by opening new galleries and workshops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the competition\u2019s judges, this proved that the\nMuseum has showed \u2018exceptional imagination\u2019 and achieved great results over the\npast year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Phillips noted that contributions from a large number of\npeople led to the success, as well as the Museum\u2019s emphasis on co-creating\nhistory with the people of Wales:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The award belongs to the thousands of individuals, volunteers and communities that have contributed their stories and labour to the Museum over the years.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Cardiff University is one of the many organisations that have adopted a close relationship with the museum over recent years. They have collaborated many times, including on the Traces project in 2017 to develop a storytelling app for the Museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have also worked together on educational projects for\nyoung people, such as Shape My Street, the Welsh School of Architecture\u2019s\nnational design competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The competition, which will be holding its prize winners\u2019\nday at the Museum, encourages primary school children to connect with their\ncommunities by designing new neighbourhoods, integrating science and technology\neducation with creative design exercises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to this, the University and the National Museum\nWales signed an agreement of understanding in 2015, with the aim of working in\nresearch areas shared by both organisations. Indeed, this \u2018participatory ethos\u2019\nthat Sain Ffagan has adopted \u2018has been responsible for our success in the\ncompetition\u2019, according to Ms Phillips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also noted the educational link between Cardiff\nUniversity and St Fagans which has been of personal importance to her:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I competed my MA degree in Folk Studies at Cardiff University between 2004-05. At the time, this degree was offered in collaboration with St Fagans and a large proportion of the teaching took place at the Museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, some of the lecturers are now close colleagues\nof mine. I look back at my time at Cardiff University with fond memories. I was\nin my mid-twenties at the time, and had spent many years in the world of work\nbefore returning to the lecture theatre. I think that that break from education\nwas good for me and has had a positive impact on my time at Cardiff.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relationship that the University and the communities of Cardiff have with the Museum has been very fruitful. The museum\u2019s future is looking very bright and reflects the strength and wealth of Cardiff’s and Wales\u2019 culture alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following St Fagans Museum\u2019s recent success in the 2019 Museum of the Year competition, we asked one of the principal curators about the reason for the success and the Museum\u2019s links with Cardiff University.","protected":false},"author":904,"featured_media":3982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,4,38,1],"tags":[157,190,119,191],"class_list":["post-3979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-archaeology-and-religion","category-news","category-our-alumni","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology","tag-cardiff-alumni","tag-history","tag-st-fagans"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/904"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3979"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4018,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979\/revisions\/4018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}