Special Displays
Glasgow Museums’ special display spaces provide a unique opportunity for community groups to create their own exhibitions using the collections stored at Kelvin Hall.
Heritage Arcade
Kelvin Hall has had a fascinating history and you can learn all about it at the Heritage Arcade. Discover the various lives of Kelvin Hall as you walk along the timeline. Here you can see a Magic Mirror from the well-loved Carnival and Circus, or watch film footage from the Moving Image Archive
Show People Display
In 2013 two Showpeople, Olivia Newsome and Duncan Smith, were working with Glasgow Museums. At the time it was mentioned that some well-known circus mirrors were considered missing in the Showpeople community. This intrigued our Curator of Social History, who checked some mirrors in the museum collection which had very little information known about them. Duncan helped to confirm that the mirrors were in fact those that the Showpeople were speaking about!
Together, Glasgow Museums and a team of Glasgow Showpeople worked together to put the Short/Stout mirror on display. It helps represent the wonderful memories of not only this attraction, but the circus at Kelvin Hall and carnival as a whole.
Showpeople Magic Mirrors, © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums and Libraries Collections
Community Displays
The Community Display section at Kelvin Hall is an area where curators and community groups work together to create small exhibitions of items from the collections held at Kelvin Hall. The current display was curated by ESOL learners at a local college.