In 2009, Antonio Cortés, an English language teacher from Colegio Cardenal Spínola school in Spain, got in touch with the Museum to tell us about his project ‘Undergrounding London’. Since our first contact, the Museum has kept in touch with Antonio and his students, working together to develop new themes for the ‘Undergrounding London’ project. So when we started developing our collection in preparation for the Mind the Map exhibition, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for Antonio’s story to be captured for our collection. Hear all about the project and see some of the activities in action in their fantastic film:
Since taking part in the Map as Inspiration project, Antonio has continued to work with the Museum, including most recently when he and his students wrote some new labels for our upcoming poster parade ‘What is a Map’. We hope to continue working with Colegio Cardenal Spínola school into the future!
Another of the brilliant projects who took part in our Map as Inspiration project was that of Shota Kuroki and the ThinkQuest team from Kanagawa University High School in Japan. Shota and his team are interested in information graphics, and use Beck’s map as an example of how such a simple idea can have a massive impact on how information is communicated around the world. Their project won the ThinkQuest Japan award in 2011, and the Museum was delighted to have been able to work with the group.
Here’s their video:
After winning the competition, the team sent us some messages:
Hello, I’m Yuki Hirotsu and I took charge of the animation on the top page of our website. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to display our website and video at your exhibition in 2012.
We have been working on this project since last April and we managed to make a good website thanks to your cooperation.
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The global exchange between you and us led to the championship.
We hope we go to London where is a beautiful city sometime in the near future.
Thank you very much!
Chiaki Matsumoto
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My name is Ryosuke Matsuoka. We sent a video letter to your museum in December.
Thank you for sending ours various kinds of material such as the book, the poster, and so on for my preparation of website. This was the first time for ours to communicate with people in foreign countries without interpreter. I’m glad to send a mail to you again, because I want to let you know about my website. With your help, we won the highest award in the website.
Thank you so much and I`m looking forward to visiting the museum one day.
Orchard Hill is a special needs college cased in Carshalton, south-east London. The college caters for students with a range of needs, and has fantastic staff and facilities. Up until a couple of years ago though, the names of the classrooms and floors of the college were confusing and hard to remember, so the staff and students decided to take action. After a brainstorm with the students, it was decided that each floor should be named and colour coded as one of the Underground lines, with each room being renamed after a station on chosen line. The new scheme has been a great success – hear all about it from the students and teachers themselves:
This month, the Museum will be unveiling its exciting new exhibition, Mind the Map. The exhibition forms part of the Museum’s Stories of the World Cultural Olympiad programme for 2012.
Mind the Map not only celebrates the impact the Tube map has had on design and cartography, but also explores the international influence of the iconic diagram. During the planning of the exhibition, the Museum searched for projects which are taking place around the world, and which use the map as more than just a navigation tool.
Have you ever used a map to learn a new language? Or how about to name rooms and floors in your workplace? People all over the world, from Spain to Japan, as well as here in the UK, are using the Tube map in innovative and fascinating ways. All of these projects have changed the way we at the Museum have viewed the amps in our collection – it’s been an amazing journey for us all.
Three of the projects we came across have been captured on film for the Museum’s collection, and are now online via the Museum’s YouTube channel for you to enjoy. They are also featured on the blog as individual posts: Undergrounding London; Orchard Hill College; and ThinkQuest Japan.
What do you use the Tube map for? Share your stories here!
Again, a big thank you to everyone who has contributed so far to Agnès’ artwork, ‘The Land of Hopeful Commuters’! We now have almost 550 responses to the question ‘Where do you hope to be?’ – brilliant.
Our ‘Sense and the City’ exhibition has now finished and staff have been busy removing the exhibits, leaving space for us to embark on the ‘Mind the Map’ exhibition installation. Yesterday I met with Agnès to look at the space where her artwork will be displayed, to take into account any final adjustments that will need to be made before the work goes to print.
If you’d like to be part of this amazing artwork then it’s not too late to contribute – we’ll be collecting responses for the rest of the day. You can complete the questionnaire online at: http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/landofhopefulcommuters
‘The Land of Hopeful Commuters’, Agnès Poitevin Navarre’s anecdotal map of London, is progressing nicely. We so far have almost 500 responses – thank you London! Some really beautiful/sad/funny/quirky contributions towards an artwork that will be a very different and insightful addition to the ‘Mind the Map’ exhibition, mapping the hopes and aspirations of London’s commuting public.
We’re still collecting responses so if you haven’t had a chance to contribute yet then it’s not too late. Agnès is looking to get responses from people all over London. At the moment, we’re particularly keen to hear from residents in:
Harrow
Ealing
Barnet
Hounslow
Enfield
Redbridge, and
Newham
You can contribute to ‘The Land of Hopeful Commuter’s’ by completing the questionnaire online.
We’ve had a fantastic response so far to ‘The Land of Hopeful Commuters‘ – thank you! So where do Londoners hope to be? ’Where the currency is trust and everyone is wealthy’, ‘Baking brownies blissfully by Battersea before brunch’ and ‘Right here, right now’.
I’ll be spending today in the Museum’s galleries with one of our volunteers, Darren, asking Museum visitors where they hope to be. Last week we did a survey of Museum staff to get their responses, which Agnès used to create the below example of how the final artwork might look. Here’s some of the Museum staff’s responses, just to get the creative juices flowing:
- Picnicking in the park this summer, laughing with friends in London Fields
- New York
- In a place where my achievements outweigh my ambitions
I’ll be posting updates on the project as it develops. Look forward to receiving your response soon!
On 9th November 2011 Stories of the World held their annual conference at Leeds City Museum. An opportunity for project co-ordinators and participants from across the country to get together and share news, updates and information about the projects they’ve been working on. Representing London Transport Museum on the day were Michelle Brown (Community Curator), Peter Crump (Young Consultant), Steve Gardam (Acting Head of Live Programmes), Elvis Miranda (Young Consultant), Kway Mokgalagadi (Young Consultant), Rhian Morris (Schools & Young People Programmes Manager), Izara De Nobrega (Young Consultant) and Vicki Pipe (Learning Officer: Young People).
This film, produced by Chocolate Films, explores the ideas and issues raised on the day, and also stars a number of LTM’s Young Consultants!
On Saturday 7th January the Young Consultants took a trip to the London Transport Museum Depot.
We had the amazing opportunity to work with curator Claire Dobbin, and we were luckily granted the chance to help select the pocket maps to appear in the upcoming exhibition “Mind the Map”.
The Depot, based in Acton Town holds the history of London Transport from pocket maps & posters to the last buses and trains of their kind, which eventually receive funding for repair and gets used as exhibits in places like the LTM.
During my action packed day at the Depot I learnt a lot of information on the history of transport which gave me the answers to many unanswered questions.; such as how the underground map we use today was created.
I explored the different types of pockets maps from the past 200 years, looking at various different designers and how and why they have changed.
I’d say the LTM Depot is a mind-blowing environment for transport fans everywhere and would definitely advice you to attend the public open days. For information on these days check out www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/museum-depot/events.
