Culture Calling: A Museum Lover's Guide to Bristol

This is the perfect city to visit to appreciate centuries of history.

(An article I wrote for Culture Calling) 

Image credit: Tony Hisgett, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

Once the second UK city only to London, Bristol has a complex cultural heritage stretching from the slave trade, to Brunel’s inventions, to the vibrant street art of recent decades. If you are a lover of museums, this is the perfect city to visit to appreciate centuries of history. From science centres to stately homes, there is so much to explore that even the most hardened museum buff will be enthralled by the city’s cultural offerings.

Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

This is perhaps the most obvious choice, as the name itself would imply. Although it may be a cliché to start with the city’s main museum, the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery actually has a very impressive collection of art and artefacts, and is well worth a visit. Entering the beautiful neoclassical building designed by Sir Charles Robert Cockerell, you will be instantly struck by the atmosphere of the museum. With a Bristol biplane replica hanging overhead, Assyrian statues to one side and a Banksy sculpture to the other, there is clearly a fascinating and eclectic array of exhibits in store. The ground floor covers archaeological objects from Egypt and Assyria, while the first floor holds geological wonders, sparkling minerals and dinosaur skeletons. Perhaps the most surprising element is the art collection on the second floor. Impressively large in scope, these galleries feature pieces from masters such as Gainsborough and Constable. If you’re looking to cover a lot of historical and geographical ground, the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery should really be your first stop.

Image Credit: Wendy North, Bristol Museum entrance hall

Bristol Museum and Art Gallery is located at Queens Rd, Bristol BS8 1RL.

M Shed

If you’ve taken a look at the historical exhibits in the Bristol Museum and are still raring for more museum time, it’s just a short walk down Park Street to get to M Shed, the cultural centre of Bristol. Built on the site of the former Industrial Museum in 2011, M Shed is a new and exciting take on displaying heritage. Occupying a modern building, M Shed covers three main floors: Bristol Places, Bristol People and Bristol Life, each taking a different angle through which to tell the story of the city, through artefacts, paintings, videos and resident testimonies. Whereas many heritage sites tend to avoid provocative issues, M Shed confronts the city’s complex dynamics head on, with exhibitions on Bristol’s role in the slave trade, the Somali community living in Bristol and spotlighting some of the more run-down areas of Bristol which are not usually represented in mainstream coverage of the city. There are also fascinating tours available around the storeroom, which holds industrial, maritime and personal objects from the city’s past. Volunteers have also been working on restoring the historical cranes on Bristol’s docks. For those who wish to delve deeper into the city’s cultural heritage and contemporary society, this is the modern museum for you.

Image Credit: Heather Cowper, M Shed

M Shed is located at Princes Wharf, Wapping Rd, Bristol BS1 4RN.

@Bristol 

No, there isn’t a typo on the road signs, this is the name (pronounced ‘At-Bristol’) of the go-to science centre in Bristol. Rather than being historical, like many of the other institutions on this list, @Bristol focuses on interactive science and technology. With regular new additions to the exhibits, which include the UK’s only 3D Planetarium and an indoor greenhouse, there is a clear ambition to inspire curiosity and creativity, particularly among younger visitors. There are talks, live demonstrations and events allowing for more in-depth exploration of the exhibits and the science behind them. Almost everything can be handled or moved, meaning it is the ideal destination to delight a new generation of museum lovers. There are also after-hours, hands-on talks for adults, so there really is something for everyone. Located right by the harbour side, it is also surrounded by some great restaurants to really make a day out of it.

@Bristol is located at Anchor Rd, Harbourside, Bristol BS1 5DB. 

Red Lodge Museum

Red Lodge Museum is quite an unusual find, given that it is neither a stately home nor a traditional museum. It is more a mix of both: a ‘historic house museum’. The original building was Tudor, and the museum traces the changes in the inhabitants of the building from the 1580s through to the early nineteenth century. Three of the rooms are displayed exactly as they would have appeared in the sixteenth century complete with the oak furniture of John Young, a merchant who had the original lodge built to show other merchants his coveted portraits and exotic finds. These rooms include the last complete Elizabethan room in Bristol. The Youngs also had eight ornamental gardens, and a beautiful Elizabethan Knot Garden still remains today. In the 1730s, the lodge became a family home and fashionable extensions were added, doubling the building in size. In 1854, the lodge went on to become a Victorian school, capturing an interesting slice of history where reformer Mary Carpenter hoped to nurture the nation’s poor girls rather than leave them to the workhouses and prisons. This rather strange building acts as a walk through history, offering rare snapshots of various moments in Bristol’s heritage.

Image Credit: Sam Saunders, Red Lodge Museum

Red Lodge Museum is located at Park Row, Bristol BS1 5LJ.

Brunel’s SS Great Britain

The SS Great Britain represents such a key moment in Bristol’s history that any museum lover worth their stripes would surely hate to miss out on a visit to this award-winning attraction. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the steamship was the longest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1854, and the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic. Yet this is not just a history lesson; the ship itself and the area surrounding it have been renovated to allow an immersive experience. The Dockyard Museum recreates how the Bristol docks would have been, complete with costumed models and fake horse-drawn carriages. Although the ship no longer sits in the water, recorded sounds of wood creaking in the river contribute to the theatre of the harbour side. This is beautifully done, and immediately sets the scene for the ship that ‘changed the world.’ You are then able to board the ship and get up close to the historical engine and propeller. As such a key symbol on Bristol’s landscape, the ship is often involved in events and festivals throughout the year, and is really a must-see to round off your museum experience in Bristol.

Image Credit: SS Great Britain, weather deck

SS Great Britain is located at Great Western Dockyard, Gas Ferry Rd, Bristol BS1 6TY.

Once the second UK city only to London, Bristol has a complex cultural heritage stretching from the slave trade, to Brunel’s inventions, to the vibrant street art of recent decades. If you are a lover of museums, this is the perfect city to visit to appreciate centuries of history. From science centres to stately homes, there is so much to explore that even the most hardened museum buff will be enthralled by the city’s cultural offerings.

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3 Days in Como

I genuinely feel physics works differently here

Sipping a cocktail whilst a huge slice of mango narrowly misses poking me in the eye, I am staring out at George Clooney’s house trying to spot his new born twins. To one side are mountains covered in greenery, sunlight sending shadows sprawling across the tops. To the other side are boats bobbing up and down on the lake.

 I’m currently in Como, with my personal tour guide, Hannah, and we have just sat down for aperetivo. There are many reasons for my continued love of Italy- the history, the weather, the food, the language, the fashion- but this is my new-found favourite thing. At around 7pm, the locals sit down for a drink and (included in the cost) a plate of olives, pizza and bread. Aperetivo works so well in this climate, allowing us to walk out of the lake after a swim and dry off whilst getting a bit sloshed, looking out as the sun begins to disappear behind the mountains. We’ve been selecting different places each day to sample aperetivo and Hannah’s ensured we’ve kept away from the touristy places, going to the more hidden gems. Yes, in one of them, the loo consisted of a hole in the ground with a toilet seat plonked on top, but overall they haven’t disappointed, particularly in their Italian-ness. Italian men sit on plastic chairs puffing cigarette smoke in my face, huge tanned bellies sticking out of white vests. There are also slightly younger Italian men man-spreading, wearing their arrogance as well as they wear their designer sandals and shorts. I’m still unsure at what point these younger guys lose their abs under flab and swap their sunglasses for cigarettes.

Basically alcohol with an entire fruit salad on top 

Hannah hasn’t just limited my experiences to drinking and people-watching the other customers. She has a pasta maker that was actually made in the 50s. ‘How do you make pasta?’ I hear you ask. I’d never really thought about how pasta was made. I mean, perhaps a tiny tiny part of my brain was picturing spaghetti fields or penne farms. We in fact just used flour and egg and a cool contraption that –with lots of metal rollers that you can adjust to get closer and closer together- looks a tad like a torture mechanism for really small limbs. Moving that morbid thought to the side, it was really therapeutic and very old-school Italian.

Retro. 

Another first was driving Hannah’s fabulously vintage car. We set off with the comforting knowledge that the car has suffered multiple breakdowns whilst navigating the ridiculously windy roads of Como. I genuinely feel physics works differently here. These roads seem unnecessarily steep and have cars going both ways. Every time the Fiat goes around a corner it seems a lorry or a truck or a coach appears just to push us off the edge of the mountain. Yet somehow both lines of traffic survive to drive another day, as if we have all got narrower like a scene in Harry Potter.

I swear there's a spell on the buses that allow them to be as mobile as a Fiat 

I have also never felt as much like a slab of meat as I do in Como. No, I don’t mean like when a girl walks into Pryzm and the male/female ratio is off so it’s like going into a lion’s den. Not like a piece of meat in a sexual way. I actually mean a piece of meat like I am the most amazing Michelin level food. For some reason, I am more edible here than I have ever been. Mosquitos flock to me, persevering bravely through the clouds of anti-mosquito spray, crawling under my jeans, shirts, shoes, to get to the most juicy bits. They seem to then quickly Whatsapp their mates ‘yo, Mossy, this one’s really scrumptious, top quality O negative right here, I’ll send you my location.’ At any one moment in Como, I have one somewhere on my body. I mean it’s a compliment really.

Not bad. 

So, I suppose if the mosquitos can brave death by suffocation in spray or squishing by a giant hand, I can brave jumping off a boat in the middle of a lake. I’ve never done it before because I hate the feeling of not being able to see the bottom of the water. But as Hannah star-fish style jumps into the lake, I decide it’s an experience I need to have. We have hired a boat out and I’ve had a running commentary from Hannah about who has lived in which villa, from Versace to Winston Churchill. I began the journey clutching on the bars for dear life, particularly as the boat was flung over other wakes. As I’ve got used to it, I’ve got the courage to jump in. For a few seconds as I’m plunged into darkness, I genuinely don’t think I’ll resurface and I just hope my body is airlifted over the Clooney villa so my spirit gets a good view. Sure enough, spoiler alert, I do survive, although I need Hannah’s help to climb back up onto the boat as the wind seems to be pushing it further and further away from me, just for the laughs. From the boat, we get an amazing view of each town on the lake, it is really the best way to explore. The villas are stunning. With very little planning regulation, they are all unique, painted varied coral colours, each with a different sprawling layout. There is the odd really modern villa here and there, standing out by being covered in glass or metal. Many have private lifts to take them from their door to the main roads. From the lake, most of the roads are hidden by greenery, so the villas look completely isolated from one another, giving a strange feeling they are all suspended somehow on the trees.

I have also been educated on Italian lingo. My main conclusion is that ‘prego’ (basically meaning ‘you’re welcome’) can be used pretty much in any occasion and be correct. Letting someone go in front of you? ‘Prego.’ About to start eating a meal? ‘Prego.’ Replying when someone says ‘thank you’, ‘can I use the bathroom?’ or ‘have you finished with this?’ ‘Prego.’ It’s my favourite word as I get to roll my ‘r’s, be polite and sound like a native.

Art and ruins- very Italy. 

As History of Art students (don’t know if I mentioned that that’s my degree?) we of course fit in a bit of history and arty sight-seeing. Hannah takes me further into Como city centre, rather than the lake front where tourists normally concentrate. Like many Italian cities, it has the beautiful balance of really old buildings with modern shops built in, displaying some of the biggest fashion designers in windows surrounded by ancient bricks. We pop into a free exhibition of local art students. The paintings and sculptures are displayed in a building on top of Roman ruins. Hannah also takes me to the Duomo of Como, one of the biggest and most important sights to see in the city. It is a stunning Roman Catholic cathedral, which took three and a half centuries to complete so captures a mix of Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance era architecture. Outside are two statues of Pliny the Elder and Younger (natives of Como) as well as a tiny stone frog which has lost its head after centuries of being rubbed for good luck. Inside it is magnificent as well, with Renaissance designs as well as later apses with drama and golden rays verging on Baroque. There are also distinguished 16^th century tapestries and 19^th century stained-glass windows. And it’s the one place I didn’t get bitten, so maybe mosquitos are a religious bunch.

It has been a relaxed trip. With both the ridiculously high temperatures, good food and endless hills, I don’t know how Comosians (Comopeoples? Comish? Commies?) ever get anything done. They must be either too sweaty, stuffing their faces, or too relaxed. It’s a world away from the fast-pace of London. Perhaps one of our most eventful aperetivo moments was when I thought I spotted Justin Beiber calmly sitting behind Hannah, but alas, his circa-2010 hair was a giveaway that it was just his Como doppleganger. I’m still on the look out for George and Amal though. Prego.

What do you mean? 

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Cheat Sheet: What To Read To Seem Arty

It has the word ART in huge letters on the spine so everyone will see that you’re In The Know. 

They also make great elbow rests 

Chances are you’ve been to an open-plan house with white walls, white carpet and shiny table-tops. It’s the type of place where you instantly take off your shoes, wish you’d worn nicer socks and are terrified you’ll spill something. I’d place a bet that in the living room of this Straight-out-the-White-Company-Catalogue House there is a small collection of arty books. This will either be under the coffee table or on a white shelf next to an empty vase and an ambiguously exotic lump of wood. Unless the owner of the house is particularly artistic, these books will inevitably gather dust and go unopened for years. But the point is, they are there. Art books seem to be a staple of mild intelligence, creativity and normally have cool covers that look particularly classy in minimal interiors. 

Told You. 

From a less cynical point of view, you may also want to just dip into art from time to time and not know where to start. Art criticisms, reviews and articles often have lots of ‘specialist’ vocab like ‘chiaroscuro’ and ‘postmodernism’. So this is where I step in, with this helpful Cheat Sheet. Because (nerd alert) I have in fact read art books. These are what to read (or maybe just flick through) to get your grounding in art vocab, what’s hot in the art world, and basically what we’re all banging on about the whole time. And of course, the books that will look snazzy on your beech shelving unit.

Pretty self explanatory

Art: The Definitive Visual Guide- Andrew Graham Dixon

Right let’s start with this one (full marks for the imaginative title). It covers everything from Prehistoric to Contemporary in bitesize amounts. Giving you the who’s who in art as well as highlighting themes, subjects, and methods. There’s genuinely something interesting for anyone with even a slight arty interest, with In Focus pages where the book draws subtle parts of the pieces to your attention. Aesthetically it’s white (yay, no chance of clashing with your curtains) and has the word ART in huge letters on the spine so every visitor will see that you’re In The Know. Perhaps the only downside is you won’t be able to carry it in your bag so if you’re trying to impress people on the tube, you may need to look elsewhere.

"Why is no one looking at how arty I am??" 

Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That – Susie Hodge

And now to a much more interesting title, this book focuses on modern art. This deals with how some artworks have been ridiculed in the last centuries for being an illusion of artistic skill. People will look at conceptual art like Lucio Fontana’s and exclaim ‘Oi I could have done a rip in a canvas and sold it for millions.’ Well, matey, it’s time you read this book and realised there’s a lot more to it. Susie Hodge deals with some of the more controversial pieces of modern art and pulls apart why they sell for millions and your 5 year old’s doodle of a potato does not. You don’t have to be convinced by her argument, but at least you can have more of a basis for your debate…and this one fits in your handbag. 

"Sorry, Bobby, you may need to work a bit harder at that one..." 

The Story of Art- Ersnt Gombrich

Let’s step it up a tad here. This is a hardcore Art Book, no page-flicking and very few pictures, it is the size and weight of a brick. However, published in 1950, it is on every undergraduate art/history of art reading list. Yeah, it is pretty massive but Gombrich manages to cover an expansive period of art in a cohesive and understandable way. Calling it a ‘story’ is quite apt, he manages to write in a way that makes you empathise with each artist he mentions and places you right in the midst of each time period, understanding all of their issues and ambitions. It’s a good way to appreciate the arc of art, how we got from cave paintings to Van Gogh. It’s not the most contemporary view of history, but if you’re not that interested in postmodern thinking you won’t see many problems with that.

You can take this out on the tube and show everyone you mean business 

Ways of Seeing- John Berger

Another key player in art criticism and a common name on reading lists, John Berger was important in encouraging people to think differently about how we look at art. He wanted us to understand how a post card is different from the actual painting it represents, how each image we look at changes when and how we look at it. It’s pretty psychological and if you get into it, you’ll start analysing imagery all over the place. He was working at a time before social media and before a bazillion TV channels, so it’s interesting to think about how his work can be understood and taken further nowadays. His book's small and can really be read in a day or two, as it is less about the writing and more about the positioning and context of the photos he includes. If you’re not really a reader you’ll be pleased to know he started with a documentary series which can be watched for free on Youtube (although you may be put off by his startling choice of 70s shirts).

Ways of seeing... why fashion has changed 

Magazines

Art magazines are perfect for staying up to date with the contemporary art world, what’s in and out in the big galleries and auction houses. Of course you have to be selective with which magazine you choose as they really differ on their angles. Here’s a few to think about… The Burlington Magazine is more an academic journal with articles written by some of the most prominent academics. It’s quite heavy to start with (and not a fab price for a student, I must say) but will help you get stuck in. A magazine more concerned with contemporary art is Art Review, it has lots of articles, criticisms and (obviously) art reviews. The adverts are often just as interesting as the articles as they’ll also show you what’s going on globally in the art world. And it’s got a pleasingly minimalist cover design, perfect for subtly placing on your coffee table. Aesthetica is in some ways even more arty, with lots of edgy words like ‘spatial introspection’, ‘standardisation’ and ‘syntheticism’. There isn’t that much text in this one, and has more of a focus on photography. It’s actually beautifully done, with full pages dedicated to full colour prints of art works. If you’re less into theory and more into simply really talented photographers, artists and fashion designers, this is for you. There’s loads more out there to flick through and Twitter is normally a good place to find them and sample their content before you buy.

Much edgier than my new profile picture. 

Chanel/fashion annuals

And if reading the books really isn’t your thing, but you’re still aspiring for the décor of a BeautyYoutuber’s bedroom, then fashion books are probably your best bet. Vogue and Chanel books look instantly classy and seem to always be paired with perfume bottles and orchids. They’re also good to read (obvs) but if you want to share your newly acquired knowledge, it’s probably best to do this on the FROW rather than in the Saatchi. 

#HaveYouReadThoseThough

 

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