The title of the exhibition at the Ulster Museum, Raiders, Traders and Invaders conjured up images of blood and gore, fierce warriors disembarking from majestic long-ships ready to plunder the shores of foreign lands. It looked promising and we hoped our visit was going to be as exciting as it sounded.
Ten minutes later, after traipsing around a small exhibition space, we felt let down and our hopes of adventure into another world had been dashed. For starters, there was no sound. No roaring Vikings, no oars pounding through the sea and definitely no cries of battle, which could have helped bring the exhibition to life. Large glass cabinets filled with relies of the past turned us off. We got bored staring at bits of flint arrow heads.
There were lots of young children visiting the exhibition because they were learning about the Vikings at school. The museum does organise a lot of special activities for schools but we reckoned these options should be available at weekends. And it would also be a good idea to have worksheets and crayons available so children and young people can get more involved in the exhibition and actually come away having learned something.
The museum did have some really interesting hands-on stuff, like samples of the different kinds of material worn by the Vikings and a huge wooden puzzle. We gave this the thumbs up because you could actually touch it and get more involved. We also enjoyed translating our names into the ancient Germanic Runic alphabet, which we wrote up on the blackboard. We felt that the basket of Viking clothes for dressing up was a great idea, particularly for younger children who would really enjoy it.
We would like to see more interactive exhibits, even a special area dedicated for children and young people, which would mean history could come alive through touch, sound and smell. We would also like to see more involvement by museum staff: they seemed to watch our every move, which was a little off-putting. If they could tell young people more about, say, the flint arrow heads in the glass cabinets. It would be a lot more interesting than reading long blurbs hanging on the walls.
Overall the exhibition was all right but we would like to see more hands-on history. This would make the museum a place that we want to go and not somewhere that we have to go on school trips. We felt that the people planning this exhibition had done a good job when catering for young children and adults but that the teenage market had been left out. We were glad to see that the museum asked us to fill out evaluation forms and hope that our comments help organisers make museums more child friendly and exciting.
About the team
This review was produced by editors Lisa Skinner, 16, and Eoin Hodkinson 15, and reporter Victoria Murray, 13. It appeared in the Museums Journal. For more reviews from the series, see column left.
