Category: Natural History

Natural History, Temporary Exhibition

Displays of Power: A Natural History of Empire, Grant Museum, London

Museums are exhausting. It’s day one of 2020 and I am just so god damn tired. I’m just starting year six of being a museum professional. I’ve had five different jobs made up of multiple extended contracts. I’ve moved house five times, moved hundreds of miles, started a second Masters and volunteered a few places too. I live on a tight budget, commute three hours a day and frankly every other day I debate quitting because why the hell haven’t I got into a stable enough position to achieve the ultimate goal of getting a cat?! (Seriously it should not be this difficult to get a cat). Continue reading “Displays of Power: A Natural History of Empire, Grant Museum, London”

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Natural History, Temporary Exhibition

Dippy on Tour, Dorset County Museum

I’ve been quiet, but it’s not that I haven’t been busy, there just hasn’t really been any museum visits that have inspired me to write. So I decided to break the writer’s block and headed to Dorset County Museum because, if you haven’t heard, Dippy (that famous dinosaur from the Hintz Hall of the Natural History Museum) is touring the UK. Continue reading “Dippy on Tour, Dorset County Museum”

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Natural History, Temporary Exhibition

The Museum of Ordinary Animals, Grant Museum, London

Do we go to museums to see wonders? Perhaps things we couldn’t see anywhere else in the world; animals that are now extinct like dinosaurs or dodos, or creatures that we may never get a chance to stand alongside like whales or naked mole rats? I would say that we probably do, but that this is a bit of a ridiculous desire considering we don’t know how interesting the everyday animals in our lives are.

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Natural History

Tring Natural History Museum, Tring

It’s always a wonderful experience when a museum makes you catch your breath in wonder. It is, after all, only in the museum world that I will come face to face with a polar bear upon stepping over the threshold. The feeling here is bitter sweet. I’m of course incredibly sad that such animals have died or been killed, but I am also fascinated by the skills of the taxidermist to create natural beauty and a seemingly everlasting life from death. Access to such incredible animals in museums also provides an excellent opportunity to learn, and I happy to say that on an otherwise sleepy Sunday in Tring, the museum was buzzing.

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Natural History, Special Interest Museum

Behind-the-Scenes Tour: Spirit Collection, Natural History Museum, London

‘Is it more stuff in jars’, was the question from my boyfriend, who I was very definitely dragging along on this birthday treat to myself. And yes, yes the Spirit Specimen Tour at the Natural History Museum in London is a behind the scenes peek of their ‘stuff in jars’ store which holds around 22 million animal specimens.

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Natural History, Temporary Exhibition

Whales: Beneath the surface, Natural History Museum, London

Swimming through the air, mouth gaping, back arched as it dives; the newly displayed Blue Whale in the Hintz Hall of the Natural History Museum is spectacular. I was upset to hear that Dippy the Diplodocus was going to be replaced. He had been the guardian of the Hintz Hall for each of my visits, so it was hard to imagine how anything could take his place.

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Natural History, Temporary Exhibition

A Museum of Modern Nature, Wellcome Collection

It’s taken me a month to get to this gem of a temporary exhibition but gosh darn it, it was worth the wait! Imagine if a museum asked visitors what they wanted to display . . . if they just put out a theme and then said ‘go on then, bring us stuff’. I mean that would be chaos, that would be insane, that would be A FLIPPING BRILLIANT IDEA WELLCOME COLLECTION – YOU UTTER LEGENDS.

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