The Atkinson, Southport - Museums Association

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The Atkinson, Southport

Art, local history and Egyptian treasures are among the eclectic mix offered at this recently opened venue in Sefton, says Rebecca Atkinson
The Atkinson, which is in the centre of the seaside town of Southport, combines performing arts spaces, an art gallery and a library, as well as a museum that features local history and the Anne Goodison Egyptian collection, which was in storage for 40 years.
 
The venue opened in 1878, after Preston mill owner William Atkinson paid £6,000 to build an art gallery and library for the town. Previously he had visited the town with his sick wife in search of the restorative sea air; eventually he bought the hotel in which they stayed and made it his home.

But a hundred years on, the Victorian building had fallen into virtual disuse, so it underwent redevelopment to restore it to an arts centre. Then, in 2010, the venue’s doors closed again for the latest refurbishment – with Between Land and Sea, the local history museum displays, being the final element to open in February.
 
On my visit I found the museum busy with people eager to see what they had been waiting for. The exhibition opens with a reconstruction of the famous prehistoric Formby footprints – where a neolithic mother and child made their way across the sands to gather food – and a floor projection that simulates gentle waves as you walk over sand that was once marked by ancient man.

Around this is a small display about the archaeology of the area, which points out that the footprints of early people can still be seen in the mud at Formby during low tide. The exhibition then takes a dramatic leap forward to the 1700s to explore what Southport is most famous for – being a sea-bathing resort.

Accessible text panels explain how the rich were drawn to the coast for the sunshine and healthy sea air, with a few portraits to illustrate the point, including one of an over-dressed Lancashire couple weighing down donkeys on the beach.
 
Here, and elsewhere in the exhibition, I think more could have been made of the class divide in Southport. The panel mentions politicians’ disapproval of a local funfair in the 1900s and other less desirable seaside pursuits, but other than a later section about local fishermen, the story of ordinary Southport people remains largely untold.

The gallery prefers to look at the more glamorous lives of the tourists that visited, as well as some of the town’s more famous residents.

Also included in the museum are the stories of the race horse Red Rum, who trained on the beaches here; the taxidermy collector Colonel Echalaz; and Frank Hampson, the cartoonist who created the Dan Dare character for The Eagle comic.

Highlights for me included the shipbuilding displays, the enticing selection of Hornby toys and the story of the 1941 Luftwaffe attack on Bootle, which makes use of interactive touchscreens.
 
There are some major plus points in this museum. I loved the adult dressing-up clothes (fur wraps and top hats aplenty), and the sensory quiz that tests you on different bird songs using taxidermy from the now-closed Botanic Gardens Museum in Southport.

The stories told in Between Land and Sea are highly engaging and made me look closely at the objects on display. They include the attempted rescue of a German boat, the Mexico, in 1886, when all but two of the 29 crew on Southport’s Eliza Fernley lifeboat drowned.

But I would have liked to have seen more of contemporary Southport in the displays, which only really extend as far as the mid-20th century. There are very few prompts for visitors to question how the town’s history has influenced the place they live in today.
 
Unlike some new local history museums, there is no sense that local people contributed to the displays. While this didn’t detract from an enjoyable experience for me, I did wonder whether local people would feel an appropriate sense of ownership and pride?

Egyptology

The new Egyptian Gallery opened in October 2014. The objects here are fascinating and, although the interpretation isn’t as interesting as in Between Land and Sea, I imagine most people will be thrilled to see these human, cat and bird mummies displays.

The use of sensory interactives, such as perfume smells, really help to bring alive (pardon the pun) some of the complex ideas behind ancient Egypt’s death rituals. And a set of scales allows you to weigh plastic hearts against a feather, with a screen then letting you know your fate.
 
As my heart was heavier than the feather, I was advised that, on my death, I would be eaten by the female demon Ammit. Undiscouraged by this prophecy, I went on to look at the art displays downstairs.

I was pleased to see the collection utilised in corridors throughout the building, including a beautifully reconstructed Victorian dining room in a recess, which transformed what would otherwise be a drab space and which should entice people upstairs to the museum. I also spotted a small cabinet of Egyptian treasures halfway through the art exhibition, a clever approach in a multifunctional space.
 
The art displays are a changing element of the Atkinson, with two exhibitions taking place when I visited. The first, The Eye of the Beholder (ended on 26 April), surveyed the varied aspects of physical beauty throughout history.

There were some exemplary works on display and, while none of them particularly challenged the notion of beauty, the thematic hang added a different element to the experience, as artworks were displayed to reflect each other. Sometimes this was through theme or subject, and sometimes through the relationship between artist and sitter.

The second exhibition was LS Lowry and Theodore Major: Two Lancashire Painters (ended on 29 March), two artists who toured together in the 1950s but later went on to have very different careers. I wasn’t familiar with Major before seeing this show, but his dour street scenes reveal an acute understanding of the effect of environment on the human psyche.
 
Although there isn’t a lot of room for flexibility in the displays, the Atkinson’s rich collection and ambitious art programming should keep local people coming back. I hope so – not every town is lucky enough to have such a good museum on its doorstep.

Project data
Cost: £1,051,500
Main funder: Heritage Lottery Fund £923,500
Exhibition design: Headland Design
Display cases: ClickNetherfield
AV and film: Fuzzy Duck



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