2. How do museum objects capture thoughts and feelings?

How have you been recording your feelings while in lockdown?
Have you kept a diary of your time staying at home?
Has anyone you know been keeping a diary?

Have a look at the diaries, letters, postcards and drawings in the museum’s collection and complete the following activity.

Objects

Diaries

Full page of a open hand written notebook — Left: Lucy Hathaway's Girl Guides notebook, Centre: Claude Ewart's WWI diary, Right: Claire Wieser's school diary from Italy

Full page of an open hand written diary — Left: Lucy Hathaway's Girl Guides notebook, Centre: Claude Ewart's WWI diary, Right: Claire Wieser's school diary from Italy

View Lucy's notebook on Museums Victoria Collections

View Claude Ewart's diary on Museums Victoria Collections

View Claire Wieser's diary on Museums Victoria Collections

Post cards

Here are postcards from the museum collection

Child's writing on the back of a postcard — Left: Postcard from Ethel Kemp to her father Private Albert Edward. Right: Handmade Australian Flag card, 2 Oct 1980

Painted Australian flag — Left: Postcard from Ethel Kemp to her father Private Albert Edward. Right: Handmade Australian Flag card, 2 Oct 1980

View the postcard on Museums Victoria Collections

View the card on Museums Victoria Collections

Letters

People used to write a lot more letters in the past. From personal letters to business letters

Two page handwritten letter — R. Gatward, Prahran, Melbourne to Polly, Luton, England, circa 1859

View this letter on Museums Victoria Collections

Choose one object from above examples

What is the object?
Why did you choose this object?
How did the object make you feel?
What story is the object helping to tell?

Drawings

People use drawings as a way of capturing thoughts, feelings and experiences

Pencil drawing on paper of a military truck — Left: Drawing from World War II. Centre: Drawing by Zahra Jaffari, a refugee from Afghanistan living in Indonesia, created in 2015 while she attended the Cisarua Refugee Learning Centre. Right: An artwork created by a Grade 4 student in response to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.

Child's coloured pencil drawing — Left: Drawing from World War II. Centre: Drawing by Zahra Jaffari, a refugee from Afghanistan living in Indonesia, created in 2015 while she attended the Cisarua Refugee Learning Centre. Right: An artwork created by a Grade 4 student in response to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.

View the drawing from World War II on Museums Victoria Collections

View Zahra Jaffari on Museums Victoria Collections

View bushfire artwork on Museums Victoria Collections

Have you done any drawings while in lockdown?
What did you draw?
Why did you draw that?
What sort of things might you draw if you haven’t already? Draw something!
Will you be using items like this in your exhibition?
Add any objects you want to include in the exhibition to your planning list.

Communications

Today we use a lot of different modes of communication apart from letters, diaries, postcards, drawings. For example, we use email instead of letters quite often.

How have you been staying in touch with people who are not living in your house, during lock down?
What types of communications have you been using to stay in touch?
What communication objects will you be able to include in your exhibition that will let your visitors/viewers understand how you stayed in touch with others and what your life was like during lockdown?

Create a table to help organise your thoughts. In one column list your objects and in the other column explain what the object will help to describe or how it will help tell a story.

Hint

Have you be using: Diaries, Letters, Postcards, Drawings or other methods of communication? Text messages? Social media posts? Phone conversations? Secret meetings? Teddy bears in windows? Chalk drawings ? Rainbows?

Ready to start the next activity?

Go to activity 3