Art work on display at Southend Victoria rail station helps to highlight town’s museum

Posters created by students at Southend Adult Community College are on display at Southend Victoria rail station to highlight the summer exhibition at the nearby Southend Central Museum.

Twenty-five students from college’s Digital Photography and Advanced Sculpture and Pottery courses were given a guided tour of the museum which inspired them to create their own art works.

They teamed up with the Essex and South Suffolk Community Rail Partnership to transform their work into posters to help promote the museum and attract visitors who arrive in Southend by rail.

Catherine Gaywood, Community Rail Partnership Officer, said, “The posters look great at the rail station and are a great advert for the skills the students have acquired on their courses and will also raise awareness of the fantastic museum which is only a two-minute walk from the rail station.

“A trip to the museum is a fun experience for all the family and it’s so easy to reach by train which means you can leave the car behind and get there in a more relaxed and environmentally friendly way.”

The museum’s summer exhibition is ‘Wunderkammer – Southend’s Cabinet of Curiosities’, an immersive exhibition highlighting the stories of early collectors including one of the earliest female collectors, Isabella d’Este, and also features objects from the collection of Charles Nicholson, who was born in Hadleigh. It is at the museum until 3 October 2022.

Southend Central Museum also houses a permanent exhibition called ‘The Princely Burial’, displaying artefacts from the amazing discovery at Prittlewell in 2003 of a burial chamber that turned out to be the earliest dated Anglo-Saxon princely burial in England.