National Media Museum > Science Museum North & the loss of the RPS collection to London

I've been following a story in the Guardian about the appalling decision to move the Royal Photography Society’s world-renowned collection of more than 400,000 objects dating from 1827 to 2016 from its home (since 2003) at the National Media Museum in Bradford, to the already overstuffed Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The thinking behind this move defeats me, and I am not alone it seems, as local MPs Judith Cummins [Bradford South] and Imran Hussain [Bradford East] are both shocked and enraged by the move too. Meanwhile, Simon Cooke, the leader of the Conservatives on Bradford council, described the move as an “act of cultural rape on my city” and called for the deal to be reviewed.

As part of the move, the support for the international film festival has also been withdrawn, thus putting the city's UNESCO City of Film status at risk. Ms Cummins said, “The economic and cultural ramifications of abandoning the film festival could be enormous for Bradford. How can we seriously have an international film festival and honour our status as the world’s first Unesco City of Film without the National Media Museum at its centre? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

The V and A already holds a collection of 500,000 photographs, so the transfer of the RPS collection will almost double their holding. In the Guardian article dated 1st Feb. 2016, Martin Barnes, the senior curator of photographs at the V and A, said putting the two collections together made “a huge amount of sense”, a statement it is hard to argue with, but one can (and should) dispute the need for it all to be housed in London! Given the already crowded nature of London's big museums, and that they already attract huge tourist visits and footfalls, wouldn't it have been a better option to move the V and A collection north to Bradford and expand the National Media Museum into a larger world class museum? Bradford already has the reputation to back this up, it just needs the political will and the realisation that there is intelligent life beyond the M25 ring to follow it up.

The NMM's director, Jo Quinton-Tulloch, wrote a lengthy explanation about why she and the Trustees made the decision, that as a part of the Science Museum group there needed to be a bigger focus on all science, etc. This totally misses the point that the National Media Museum is not a general science museum! In fact it opened as the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in 1983, which is why leaving the RPS collection there should be a no-brainer. Surely it would make far more sense to move other collections, many of which are probably gathering dust in the vaults of huge London museums, up to Bradford to enhance the National Media Museum, rather than migrate everything southward and change the NMM into a general science visitor centre?

It's also worth mentioning here that Halifax, not far away, is home to EUREKA! a marvellous independent science museum aimed at children, and that Manchester just over the Pennines has the Museum of Science and Industry, so it is not as if there is a lack of general science museum provision nearby. There is, however, nowhere else locally with the same brief and kudos as that of the National Media Museum.

Apparently there is a "crisis meeting" planned for next Wednesday (2 March) where the Trustees will discuss the ongoing campaign to prevent the downgrading of the NMM into an SM northern outpost and the loss of the RPS collection. If you would like to tell the Trustees what you think of the move, you still have a couple of days to do so, and of course you can sign the petition on 38 Degrees too.

I've done both of these, and a copy of my message to the Trustees is below. I wanted to show that this is something which matters not to the people of Bradford but to many more of us in the North, and that the London-centric focus for arts and culture is just plain wrong! If you agree, why not join me?

My letter to the Trustees of the National Media Museum:

Dear Science Museum press team and Media Museum Board of Trustees,

FAO Board of Trustees 

As an enthusiastic amateur photographer and film aficionado living in Cumbria I am writing to ask that you please halt plans to move the Royal Photography Society’s collection from Bradford to London, and reverse the decision to abandon the Bradford international film festival.

For me in Cumbria I can visit the collection in Bradford easily as it is less than 90 minutes drive (as opposed to 5+ hours to London), or it can be reached by train from here in half the time it would take to travel to London by train. Accessibility to such collections is just as important to us in the North as anywhere else, and indeed it could be argued, more so, as we have proportionately less of them!

It is also vital to keep the National Media Museum name to highlight this important area of science history.  Surely changing the NMM into Science Museum North will change its fundamental nature and demote it into a regional offshoot of the London Science Museum. The North already has an excellent Science Museum in Manchester but the NMM is unique in the North.

If the Trustees are serious about the value of such collections to the whole population not just Londoners, then allowing them to remain in Bradford is essential.  Moving the RPS collection to the V and A in London helps concentrate the UK’s cultural resources away from the North and sends the wrong message: that only the south of the country is worthy of important collections. 

Bradford has hosted the RPS collection, and the international film festival, for many years;  urgent steps should be taken to protect and enhance these in Bradford, not ship the collection off wholesale to London. Please reconsider. 

The National Media Museum in Bradford
The original uploader was Dupont Circle at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Cloudbound., CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9780968

The December Deluge: Cumbria and the north

The last week has seen some of the more catastrophic events for years in the north of England and Ireland. Torrential rain falling onto already sodden land, and driven by gale force winds, meant that river levels rose rapidly, low lying areas were quickly overcome by water, whilst multi-million pound flood defences in those places which had suffered previous flooding held back the waters a little but eventually submitted to the onslaught of the sheer volume of water.

Record rainfalls levels were recorded across the county, and a major incident was declared,

A new record for the amount of rain in a 24-hour period was created at the weekend with 341.4mm recorded at Honister Pass, in Cumbria, the Met Office has confirmed.

Latest 48-hour rainfall totals following #StormDesmond pic.twitter.com/wo8I9JbRTY

— Met Office (@metoffice) December 6, 2015

The north-west of England is well-used to rain, but rain on this level is unprecedented even here. We have seen towns and village street flooded, some up to the top of their doorways so the only escape was via upstairs windows,  Lake levels have risen by several metres, engulfing many domestic and commercial waterside properties and washing away jetties. Roads have been undermined by the water, leading to sinkholes, collapses and landslides, and bridges have been either washed away or damaged so badly that they will need extensive checks and repairs before they may be used again.

This BBC news story tells the story of this week's floods in Carlisle so well.  I can't begin to imagine what the 8 metre depth of  river looks like!  And I can't comprehend the West Coast main line being under 2.5 metres of water!

There is no mention in the previous link of all the other towns and villages affected, Carlisle had the visit from PM David Cameron as that is where the majority of flooded properties were recorded.  But you could substitute Kendal, Cockermouth, Keswick, Workington, Appleby, Glenridding, Grasmere, Bowness, Lancaster or a host of other places for Carlisle and the story would still be the same. Lives turned upside down by the floods, as this link from the Guardian shows:

Cumbria, a county with an area more than four times that of Greater London, was deluged along with much of Ireland, parts of north Lancashire, the north east, and the Scottish borders, and it will takes hundreds of millions of pounds and months, maybe years, of repairs to put everything right and recover from the damage.

Without the tireless assistance and efforts of the emergency services (Police, Fire and Rescue, Coastguard, Ambulance) in Cumbria and a host of volunteers from organisations such as the mountain rescue groups, the RNLI, the Bay Search and Rescue, the situation would have been so much worse  - no doubt the same is true of other areas affected. The emergency services that have been pared back due to Government funding cuts did their utmost to ensure the safety of people affected by the floods. It's a testament to the efforts of everyone involved there there was only one reported death due to the flooding in Cumbria. The situation has been so dire that the Army were sent in to help with mass evacuations and transporting hospital patients to safety, and have been involved in helping assess damage to roads and bridges.

Meanwhile, the emotional damage caused by the frightening events, and the trauma that individuals and families that families endured and are still enduring, will probably last even longer.

To help the communities affected get back on their feet, a £3million appeal has been launched by the Cumbria Community Foundation, and donations towards this are warmly welcomed.

Remembering Bhopal 2-3 December 1984

Dear Friends

We're writing to invite you to join the thousands of people around the world undertaking a small act of remembrance tonight to mark the tragedy which took place in Bhopal on 2-3 December 1984.

It's now over thirty years since lethal gases spewed from Union Carbide's pesticide factory, killing an estimated 8-10,000 people and injuring hundreds of thousands. As each year passes, 'the struggle of memory against forgetting' becomes more important.

The transformative potential of collective memory is demonstrated in the practical, compassionate care the Sambhavna and Chingari clinics provide for gas-affected survivors, as well as those damaged since. This medical work could not, and would not, exist without your individual acts of remembering.

Every year on the night of 2 December, our friends in Bhopal gather to remember those who have died and reaffirm their resolve to support the living. Please consider joining with them for a few moments, wherever you may be. By lighting a candle we move to challenge the darkness. 

With love, peace and thanks,
The staff and trustees of
The Bhopal Medical Appeal

https://www.facebook.com/BhopalMedicalAppeal/

http://us10.campaign-archive2.com/?u=79a5aff6fe26cbf8af727edd8&id=d51b1f337f