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Unveiling the Hidden Stories
Welcome to our live blog for The Hidden Side of the Museum, an ongoing creative exploration by the Friendly Society of Artistic Labourers (FSAL) in partnership with Dorset Museum and Weymouth College.
For the sixth year, FSAL is bringing together creative practitioners, students across all our creative arts subjects, and industry professionals to uncover and reinterpret the lesser-known narratives behind Dorset Museum’s collections.
With over three million artefacts in the museum’s holdings, many stories remain untold – particularly those linked to colonial legacies, extractive practices and overlooked histories.
Our students are tackling these themes through innovative, multi-disciplinary approaches, culminating in a groundbreaking exhibition and performance event at Dorset Museum on Friday March 14th 2025.
Over the next few weeks they are preparing for the exhibition in workshops with professional artists, with a dedicated marketing team of students documenting their progress below.
Stay tuned for updates as students push boundaries, challenge perspectives, and share their progress. This blog will evolve as their work develops, leading up to the final showcase…
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Student Updates – Week 2
After a very busy two weeks of idea generation, teamwork and amazing creations, the groups are now working on the last details and finishing their final outcomes to be displayed in the Dorset Museum!
If you’d like to see more progress, behind-the-scenes images and footage, we have been sharing various posts and stories on our Instagram page.
You may also spot a lot of us wearing T-shirts presenting the logo if you wish to come along to the exhibition!
The museum take-over will take place on Friday 14th March between 6pm-9pm at Dorset Museum, Dorchester. Tickets are FREE and will be available via Eventbrite. The link will be shared very soon so keep an eye out!
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Student Updates – Week 1
Fine Art 1 – working mainly in carboard
This group’s outcomes will be sculptures made out of cardboard and paper mache – inspired by the artist workshop with Andy Parker, and they also have three individual projects ongoing!
In one group, they are working on making a big hut called a ‘Wampanoag Wetu’, based on the John White display in the museum – about the colonisation of the Wampanoag Tribe in Massachusetts. The ‘Wetu’ is a large igloo-like shaped structure often made with bark and local trees/wood/resources for the recruited people to stay in. Their aim for this project is to have it large enough for people to walk inside.
Another project is a shark that has more of a metaphorical meaning about predatory colonisers. This sculpture currently is at approx. 6ft in length; however, they hope for it to be closer to 12ft – double in size! In a similar theme to the shark, a third project is on making a large anchor and shackles as symbols of colonising.
Print making
In the print group, their project is themed around the word ‘Theft’ and their main focus is on the birds that Alfred Wallace captured and sold and/or traded whether dead or alive. For their outcome, they intend to have a large series (approx. 100-200) of birds drawn, screen printed, and collaged – then presented with price tags, replicating the idea of what Wallace did. There are also plans around having these birds hanging, available to and inviting the public/viewers of the festival to steal the birds they see.
They also are designing a logo and a selection of posters that will be a main focus of the festival, printed onto items such as badges and stickers to be sold and/or shown around.
Fine Art 2 – plants
For FA 2, they have been most inspired by plants that represent and relate to places where artefacts were stolen. For their outcomes, they are currently working on creating backgrounds using powdered ink for them to draw different plants onto. They also intend to use acrylic paint and charcoal to draw the stolen artefacts.
With this group, there are also Latin words being included – such as a banner saying “me-vade-in-domum-tuam” meaning “Let us go home”.
Textiles
Currently this group are inspired by the artefacts and are working on making a dress that has a large part attached at the back – a tapestry like piece – that they hope to have hanging from the ceiling. This textile piece will include ideas from the artefacts and they will use drawing, painting, and embroidery to create it.
Photography
In the photo group, there is a range of projects underway. One will be based in the studio where they plan to photograph people – taking their portraits – as a recreation of photos during the slavery. Another project is cyanotype based – printing documents and statistics from the slavery. There is also a mixed-media project that will be looking at the past and present of colonialism.
There are also two projects that will be looking at the past and present – one using mixed-media looking at colonialism as a whole, and one looking at Weymouth harbour.
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Next update coming soon…