Explore Volunteer Blog: What’s on the trolley?

How does the day of an Explore Volunteer begin? Setting up the trolley!

As already mentioned in the previous article, Explore Volunteers can use three different trolleys; one for each gallery. Every trolley presents several items which visitors can touch and feel. Basically the trolley is like a stall so it is really important to find a nice position for each item on it. The following video shows how usually my colleague Ben and I set the art trolley and which objects we use to engage visitors.

The items on the trolley are divided into two groups; on the left there are some examples of different kinds of art, and on the right there are some activities.

People cannot touch the artworks in the museum so our task as Explore Volunteers is to give visitors the opportunity to touch examples of artwork on the trolley. We have three different kinds of sculptures: a bronze one, much heavier than you would think, a wax one, and two wooden sculptures – there is usually a little wooden mushroom as well – which show the process of making a wooden sculpture; from the natural object to the artwork. Other examples of artwork include a small decorated pottery shard and a square panel painted with acrylic colors. There are also some instruments that an artist usually uses to work: a palette and a mahl stick; used to rest the hand and to make straight lines.

At the art trolley visitors can ask for paper and a pencil to draw. If I may say so the best artwork we receive is from our visitors; they can use our filters to view paintings from a different perspective– I suggest to read the previous article written by Ben about them – and they can play Guess the Artist with us, a funny card game which gives you some clues to guess which artist is on each card.

Some people may think that these trolleys are just for young visitors, but everybody is welcome and they can help provide visitors with a unique experience at the National Museum.

Video music credit: "Cottages" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License