Children welcome on quest for beauty

On April 29, I attended a tour of the Alphonse Mucha exhibition with my four-and-a-half-year-old daughter. It was kindly organised for members by Heritage Malta at the National Museum of Archaeology, Auberge de Provence in Valletta.

I didn’t know what to expect since I had just become a member of Heritage Malta. In fact The Quest of Beauty exhibition inspired me to take up membership at once.

To my shame, having lived in Malta for about 12 years, I had never been in the Museum of Archaeology. I had visited most of the museums that are under the umbrella of Heritage Malta but not the one of archaeology.

Being a young mum of two very active kids (under five) I was concerned that they would touch/break the objects on display, or that these objects of stone would not hold their attention as much as the colours of the paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts or animals at Museum of Natural History.

Perhaps it is not very clever of me to expect a little girl to look at the masterpiece of Mucha with the same awe as I do. However, what I found different at the Museum of Archaeology was that they do cater for the children. There is a quite spacious room next to the exhibition hall which is provided with the cushions, tables, chairs, pencils and paper with photocopies of the art pieces on display. The Museum of Archeology is a child-friendly place.

We were half an hour late for the tour. Ouch. But the lady upstairs welcomed us with a pleasant smile and explained that it was just about to begin. I thanked her for a nice welcome and expressed my surprise on the number of people in attendance. The lady said there were 65 people including children (about 12 of them, ages two to 11!).

When the tour started I looked at my daughter with slight concern – was she interested? She couldn’t see anything – so many people. She was looking for a place to sit down. I offered her the stairs. Then we saw a brother and a sister passing us by, going to the “kids’ room”. I suggested my daughter join them. After 15 minutes they were as one big family, colouring, smiling, holding hands. It gave me and other parents a whole 50 minutes to listen to the curator. I was amazed!

So thumbs up to the organisers of the Quest of Beauty.

I was also impressed by the majestic setting of the exhibition – the hall, the Grand Salon used by Knights as a refectory, and then the exhibition itself. It was so well and carefully planned. A lot of love was put into it. The tour only proved it. The organisers, regrettably I can’t recall their names and surnames, showed us, members, it was not about work for them. It was rather about sharing the joy of art and their knowledge about it.

I asked one of the mothers how she was introduced to Heritage Malta. She said that her son of eight had won a competition organised by the Maritime Museum which he attended with his school. As a reward Heritage Malta gave a family membership. What a great idea, I thought. Thumbs up to Heritage Malta.

I would like to thank the organisers of such a radiant, diverse, tastefully done exhibition. Special thanks to the museum itself for making it a child-friendly place.