The Story of the Silk Mill,Derby Museums Trust

Hannah Fox — Project Director, Derby Silk Mill Museum
Daniel Martin — Curator of Making, Derby Silk Mill Museum

Having become an independent Trust in October 2012, Derby Museums Trust manages three museum sites in the region. Among them is the Derby Silk Mill — site of the world’s first factory and part of the Derwent Valley Mills UNESCO World Heritage Site. Expanding traditional perspectives of what a museum is and can be, the Silk Mill is currently undergoing a revolutionary process of development after passing the first stage of a bid to receive funding from HLF and Derby City Council. If successful they would secure £16.4m to create Derby Silk Mill — Museum of Making, opening in 2019/20.

Derby Museums aim to inspire people to become part of a living story of world-class creativity, innovation and making. This is a vision for a cultural organisation to unite artistic, scientific and industrial achievement; their advancement of current STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) into the concept of STEAM, which incorporates Artistic creativity as an intrinsic element of thinking and making.

Our Stories of Change: Future Works conversation with Hannah Fox and Daniel Martin reveals much about the Silk Mill’s long-standing relationship with energy, and how this history is fuelling innovative change at the museum today.

What is your energetic story?

Hannah and Daniel briefly discuss the story of the Silk Mill itself, and the vital part energy played in how the site came to be.

“The very reason that this building exists where it exists is because of energy.”

Hannah tells us how her co-productive work with the city and local communities helped to re-open a museum which now stands with greater relevancy to the people of Derby.

“…the Silk Mill had been closed…in order for it to look again at what it needed to be”

Daniel explains how his frustration with the state of contemporary curatorial practice — twinned with a local sense of pride and inspired by Hannah’s commitment to co-production — brought him to the Silk Mill as well.

“I just thought, that’s what needs to happen in museums…”

Where do we find ourselves now?

Museums today have a pivotal role in inspiring future energetic development. Daniel and Hannah explain the part the Silk Mill has to play.

“We should be the spaces where those discussions are safe to have”

The Future: Optimistic or Pessimistic?

Whilst he is impressed with the solutions that are being generated to climate change issues, Daniel feels that the biggest problem is our inherent nature to react to change, rather than prepare for it.

“We’re trying to find cures instead of preventions...there’s an inherent problem there”

Hannah proposes a realistic approach. She describes the hopelessness of the individual, urges policy makers to encourage energy change, and states how cultural institutions can help the former to be heard by the latter.

“We need to wake up and be realistic about the state of the world”

Asking Why before How

Hannah concludes by explaining the experimental process undertaken by organisations like Derby Museums Trust, and offers a multitude of example questions for museums and partners alike.

“We work by experimenting, we work by prototyping, we work in partnership, we work to discover…”