Visitors' senses set alight as new interactive exhibition opens at a Limerick museum
AN INTERACTIVE ceramics exhibition that sets visitors’ senses alight has opened at a Limerick museum.
Fourth class students from St Mary’s National School, Limerick were the first to experience The Hunt Museum’s latest exhibition Made of Earth.
The interactive exhibition and experience uses touch, sound, virtual reality and games to bring to life the physical and symbolic properties of ceramics and their importance to our social history.
Director of the Hunt Museum Jill Cousins said: “The formations of civilisations, our use of tools, our interest in beauty, and even our identity, are all entwined with the development of ceramics.
The visitor will first be able to feel clay in its raw state before discovering how pottery and ceramic-making originated and developed over time going on a journey from 9,000BC through Ancient Rome and the Renaissance right up to the Industrial Revolution.
“Made of Earth tells that story while showcasing the Hunt Museum’s rich collection of ceramics. Deliberately not a passive experience of looking and reading, Made of Earth evokes all your senses in a very immersive way,” Ms Cousins continued.
The exhibition showcases several ceramic pieces from the Hunt Museum’s permanent collections from the Neolithic to Irish Contemporary ceramics, allowing visitors to gain an appreciation of their origins, uses and pictorial decorations that adorn them.
The Elements is one of the highlights of the exhibition where visitors can see how each of the four elements - earth, water, air and fire - contributes to the creation of a ceramic object.
The exhibition also features a digital map called Where on Earth that is annotated with objects that shows how pottery and ceramics evolved in different regions, influenced by the clay from that region and trade routes.
“We hope that this helps visitors to engage in our collection in a new way and gain an understanding of the fundamental role ceramics have played in our shared history across the globe,” Ms Cousins said.
Made of Earth will be open to the public until March 2023.