By Mark Carnall, on 19 June 2013
According to the age old adage, all fossil fish are born equal. This isn’t true. Some fossil fish are born, then die, then get fossilised to wow and impress. Suffice to say that not all fossil fish can be superstars, opening shopping centres, turning on Christmas lights and the like. Some fossil fish are born, then die, then get fossilised, to underwhelm. To de-inspire. To turn people away. If had a dime for every bank manager, accountant, dentist and cashier I’ve met who turned down a lucrative career in palaeontology because of an underwhelming fossil fish, then after the Bureau de Change took a cut I’d be out of pocket, I can tell you.
It’s June already meaning that including this one we’re only four more of these away from having enough monthly underwhelming fossil fish to produce a very uninspiring calendar. This month, in order to spice up the normally dry description of a particularly uninteresting fossil fish, see if you can guess what this month’s fossil is from the underside of the box. CLUE: it isn’t Sarcoprion edax.
Oh god, what’s in the box? ( CLUE 2: Not Gwyneth’s head)
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By Jack Ashby, on 18 June 2013
Whilst working on some new displays recently I stuck up a sign saying “Please bear with us whilst we develop new displays”. Some people thought this was a deliberate clever pun as the display included some bears and they believed the correct spelling to be “bare”. It seems that this is a common problem as the question “Bear or Bare” gets over 75 million results on Google. This may help you remember when to use “bear” and when to use “bare”.
1) If you are talking about the large mammal, say “bear”.
2) The adjective meaning naked is “bare”.
3) The verb meaning to carry or hold is “bear”. For example:
Bear in Mind
That’s a bear’s brain, by the way. And the skeleton’s a bear too
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By Emma-Louise Nicholls, on 17 June 2013
I can’t believe DC Comics killed off Catwoman. WHAT is that about? I guess there may be a sequel (or eight), but the picture of her demise made it look pretty definite. It is sad times in the world of action heroes. You know what kind of animal I think would make a great superhero? The Aye-Aye. It can bite through steal, has super amazing hearing, and its camouflage skills are a conservationists worst nightmare. You know what kind of animal probably wouldn’t make a great superhero? This week’s Specimen of the Week is… Read the rest of this entry »
By Claire S Ross, on 14 June 2013
Trying to find the correct object numbers
Most of the last couple of weeks I have been busy installing the new Octagon Gallery Exhibition, ‘Digital Frontiers: Smart, Connected and Participatory’. It’s been a brilliant experience and I have learnt a lot so I thought I’d talk a bit about the process of creating an exhibition from a first time curator!
The exhibition opened at the beginning of June 2013. But it all first started when I applied to exhibit in the new Octagon space. UCL Museums invited proposals on a theme (in this instance the theme was ‘frontiers’) from across the UCL community. The proposals were judged by a panel and my application on the theme of ‘Digital Frontiers’ was successful. It felt quite strange deciding on a theme without being fully aware of all the potential objects, but it paved the way for an exciting challenge to see how I could fit as many of UCL’s 18 disparate collections into my exhibition theme.
The first full meeting happened in January when I got together with all the curators and collections managers from the different UCL Museums and Collections and I explained my broad themes and plans for the exhibition. We had an initial brain storm and I was bit overwhelmed with all the information on objects that could potentially fit the exhibition concept. I then had one to one meetings with all the individual curators to discuss exhibition ideas and view possible objects, before going away and coming up with a really long list of potential objects.
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By Emma-Louise Nicholls, on 10 June 2013
As with most people, I have a number of different passions. Be it, palaeontology/zoology, or films, or board games, or buying new socks, I enjoy a great many things and dedicate a serious amount of time to each. Most time of course goes to palaeontology/zoology, in so much as I am in fact paid to do that for a living (WAHOOOO). But sometimes I feel as though I may have been neglecting an area and get the urge to go back to the roots of a hobby and give it a little TLC. When I think back to the roots of palaeontology, being the single most continuous love in my life, I remember writing an essay ‘back in the day’ on a particular fossil animal, of which we have a fantastic reconstruction in the Museum. It sits nonchalantly and unassuming in a corner but when you hear a little about it, I think you’ll get the urge to make a special journey. This week’s Specimen of the Week is… Read the rest of this entry »
By Nicholas J Booth, on 6 June 2013
Most of last week I was busy installing the new Octagon Gallery Exhibition, ‘Digital Frontiers: Smart, Connected and Participatory’, curated by Claire Ross from the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities. The exhibition features a huge range of objects, from a tweeting doorstop (the ‘sheep-pig’) to a drawer of pinned beetles, however most of the objects have come from the UCL Engineering Collections. This is one of the collections I look after, so I thought I’d talk a little bit about what goes into the process of putting together one of UCL’s Octagon exhibitions.
Exhibition poster showing one of the Engineering objects.
The exhibition opened on Wednesday 5th June. However the first meeting happened back in September when all the curators and collections managers from the different UCL Museums and Collections get together with Claire to hear about her plans for the exhibition, and to initially brain storm about what we have in our collections that fit with the exhibition subject. This was harder for some collections than others, but happily was relatively easy for me.
After this initial meeting Claire met all the curators individually to discuss the exhibition and view possible objects, before going away and coming up with a long list of what she wants. In the case of the Engineering Collections it was a very long list…which is great! However this also means that there was a lot of work for me, and others, to do.
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By Jack Ashby, on 5 June 2013
Today at the Grant Museum, not only have we flung the doors open to the public (as we do six days a week), but we have opened the doors to the Museum – and the museum cabinets – to thirteen emerging artists, inviting them to rethink our collection. Today, Sculpture Season begins.
We’re consistently thinking how to use our collections in different ways, and while the team here is a creative one (otherwise – boast boast – we wouldn’t keep winning awards) we can definitely benefit from completely different eyes and minds looking at our collection.
Sculpture Season does just that – thirteen sculpture students from the Slade School of Fine Art at UCL were invited to create works in response to the Museum’s spaces, specimens, science and history. The results are fantastic. Alongside the Museum’s historic skeletons, skulls and specimens preserved in jars, the new works engage with animal/human encounters through re-animated flesh, tunnelling rats and mice, giant worms and body bags.
The artists have created music technologies, phantom occupations of the Museum’s iPad apps, hand-knitted internal organs and explorations of the excessive masculinity of giant deer antlers. Specimens have been re-ordered, re-labelled and re-imagined. Read the rest of this entry »
By Edmund Connolly, on 5 June 2013
Tunnelling into museums (not literally!)
When it comes to job hunting I am intensely jealous of people like Flinders Petrie, who was pretty much handed the Chair of Egyptian Archaeology at the bequest of Amelia Edwards in 1892[1] . Whilst some of this does still happen in the Museum world, indeed any employment pool, it can be as difficult finding a vacancy in a museum at it is finding an andron in a Greek house[2].
Online
There are some useful website for sourcing heritage and museum jobs. Naturally one can go direct to an institution (such as the BM or Tate), but bear in mind museums that are part of institutions, eg. the Petrie, employ via the same HR routes as their host (UCL). In other words, if one wants to apply for a job at the Petrie, the application will be on the UCL job website[3]. However, for in-house volunteering schemes (as blogged in #2) you generally apply directly to the museum as they are more bespoke.
There are some websites which collate museum jobs in general, the standard Guardian Jobs is very useful as there is a ‘Arts and heritage’ group within which there is a ‘Museums’ sectioning. Slightly annoyingly though, this is separate from the Heritage and Library posts which are often also of interest, just make sure you tick both when searching.
The snazzy museum jobs website, copyright www.museumjobs.com
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By Edmund Connolly, on 3 June 2013
Collection Correspondent: Monika Zgoda
Please note this post contains images of human remains.
The allure of the Ancient Egypt, scented with the air of mystery has been enchanting generations, and while more and more of its secrets are now being discovered, it seems some of its riddles are still waiting to be solved. One of such is right here at Petrie, and although sadly it is not the Sphinx (we wish!), its beauty and whimsical charm are of equal quality.
While the use of make up and cosmetics in the Ancient Egypt has been widely covered, and we are now familiar with the various aspects of it – from the religious and spiritual connotations to its more practical uses – there is still some mystery regarding the cosmetic equipment used.
UC71153, Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
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By Emma-Louise Nicholls, on 3 June 2013
The decision for this week’s specimen of the week was an exciting adventure through the paths of taxonomic mishaps and similar looking un(closely)related animals. I chose (actually the curator suggested) a particular species and so off I went to find what specimens we had of said creature. Confusingly, the two specimens I found looked not a great deal alike (upon close inspection with the eye and thought process of a super duper scientist such as myself. Uh hum.) A wee while of interwebbing later I came to an interesting conclusion. So excited was I, by the chance to do real live comparative anatomy, that I wanted to share the experience with you. Therefore, this week you get TWO specimens. Oh yes. This week’s Specimens of the Week are… Read the rest of this entry »
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