Scottish Maritime Museum, Irvine
The Scottish Maritime Museum Trust is a charity and Company Limited by Guarantee, founded in 1983 to care for Scotland’s maritime collection and share its history. The Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine runs community activities, events, workshops and exhibitions.
At the beginning of 2025 we met with the community lead at the Scottish Maritime Museum. The goal was to bring together community groups of different ages and connect with their intergenerational heritage and climate action concerns. From those initial workshops grew 'Trashion', a creative project that turned waste into wearable art.
Working with the Irvine Youth Legacy Centre and the Irvine Seniors Forum, the project connected generations to produce an exhibition. Our Heritage, Our Future supported the group through Cultural Heritage Skills Training to achieve the SVQ unit Build Cultural Heritage Exhibitions.
Our Heritage, Our Future also delivered impacts of climate change on heritage training to community participants. In 2026, we revisited the museum to deliver the accredited version of this training to museum staff and volunteers.
In 2026, we commenced work with the museum to create a Community Heritage Climate Action Plan. Building on the delivery of impacts of climate change on heritage training, staff and visitors contributed ideas and actions to be included in the plan. A series of heritage engagement events in summer 2026 rounded out the plan by allowing visitors to feed back on the actions most important to them.
The Our Heritage, Our Future team not only helped the intergenerational group expand their understanding of climate issues, but they also provided training for the whole museum team, including staff, volunteers and members of the board. Their support and the Trashion project have also been influential in making sure climate and environmental sustainability has been included in the Scottish Maritime Museum’s mid-term business strategy update.
Matthew Moran, Scottish Maritime Museum
News
The thought-provoking, intergenerational community exhibition challenging everyone to help look after our planet has been curated by a group from Irvine Seniors Forum and Discovery Group and Irvine Youth Legacy Centre, with the support of the Museum team.
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