Annual Review 2019-2020
Find out more about RAMM’s work by downloading our Annual Review.
The year 2020 has been significantly impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic, and at RAMM this is no different. However despite lockdowns and uncertainty, we continue to celebrate the work we have achieved during the 2019-2020 period.
During 2019 we held a diverse range of events and exhibitions; our successful and exciting RAMM Lates events continued to grow in popularity and began to attract a younger audience than ever before. We welcomed speakers including Kate Humble, who talked about her fascinating time living with Nomads, and Samenua Sesher OBE, the founder of the Museum of Colour.
In September 2020 we launched a brand new programme of short courses designed to allow people to get a closer look at the objects in RAMM’s collections. Courses included a very popular exploration of fine art inspired by the Grand Tour, linked to our exhibition A Sense of Place, a session uncovering recent archaeological findings in Exeter, and a look at how boots and shoes were made, sold and advertised in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
Other highlights included Extreme Imagination, an exhibition exploring questions around both vivid and absent imaginations; A sense of place, where visitors were transported to lands both near and far while exploring the theme of place; and Sea Garden, a vibrant and intriguing contemporary art exhibition that explored the female-gendered relationship with the sea and seaweed.
2019 was also a great year for RAMM’s archaeology collection as a series of new acquisitions threw light on Devon’s prehistory, and more specifically the Bronze Age. The Dawlish Hoard grabbed the headlines, and other additions included a palstave (a type of axe), fragments of swords, bronze ingots and a tiny piece of decorated gold sheet. Our conservation teams continued to host national and international student placements and volunteers in the conservation laboratory prior to Covid regulations.
In contemporary art, Artists Heinrich & Palmer were commissioned to create Aerial, a new video work for the exhibition Birds without Borders; Exeter-based artists PSU produced artwork inspired by Exeter’s historic wool trade and the practice of wrapping fabric in ornate printed parcels, called tillets; and Bristol-based Bryony Gillard was selected for RAMM’s first South West Commission to explore Amelia Warren Griffiths’ seaweed collection.
These are just some highlights of a wonderfully diverse range of exhibitions, workshops and events that we produced during the 2019-2020 period.