What's On at UCL Museums & Collections

The Micrarium is a place for tiny things - somewhere to come and explore the microscopic specimens at the Grant Museum.

It’s often said that 95% of known animal species are smaller than your thumb, but have you noticed how most museums fill their displays with big animals? We intend to right this wrong, and in January 2013 we’ll be building a Micrarium.

We have converted an old office/storeroom into a beautiful back-lit cave displaying some of the tiniest specimens in the collection, on wall-to-wall microscope slides. Museums very rarely display objects like this, and we are experimenting with an aesthetic way of doing so.

020 3108 2052 | zoology.museum@ucl.ac.uk

Where do we end and the object world begin?

An exhibition curated by UCL Researchers in Museums, re-interpreting the university collections through the theme of ‘foreign bodies’. Through seven very different research projects, audiences are invited to explore the idea of what is alien – biologically, psychologically, socially and politically – and how this concept has shifted across history, culture and even species.

A sword that fatally wounded a sword swallower; ingested coins and nails; parasites and ticks are displayed alongside objects that enter the body through less conventional ways. Ink, introduced into the skin to create tattoos, may also inadvertently introduce dangerous microorganisms. The tattooed body has itself often been used to highlight difference: the way we define ourselves by first defining the ‘other’. Similarly, primates may be considered to be the ultimate foreign bodies, against which we define what it is to be human.

An exhibition trail leading visitors through UCL Museums to discover other "foreign bodies" hidden within the collections, will be take place once a week during museums opening hours. Each Friday at 2pm (from April 5th), a curator-led tour will begin in the North Cloisters, highlighting different parts of the trail.

Image taken on behalf of Engle Entertainment for 'The Mummy Road Show' on National Geographic


Website: blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/foreign-bodies/
Twitter: @ResearchEngager

researchersinmuseums@ucl.ac.uk

Author Robin Walker of When We Ruled takes this 7 week short course exploring history, culture and achievements of this ancient African civilisation, demonstrating that there is ample evidence allowing a detailed reconstruction of this culture drawn from a wide variety of source materials.

J. Martin 0208 686 7865 H.Pike 0207 679 4138 | jacinth.martin@csep.org.uk or h.pike@ucl.ac.uk

Sculpture students from the Slade School of Fine Art at UCL have been invited to create works in response to the Museum’s collections. The brief is wide – they may place sculptures among the Museum’s own specimens, take over entire cabinets, or make other spatial interventions.
For more information read the blog about it: Sculpture Season opens blog
Or the news piece with pictures: Sculpture Season News and images

020 3108 2052 | zoology.museum@ucl.ac.uk

What does time look like to you ? A Storm is Blowing by Cathy Haynes is a temporary commission for UCL Petrie Museum. It's an improvised 3D diagram that strings together 35 different historical pictures and models of time: an ancient Egyptian game of life in the form of a coiled snake, the philosopher Hegel's vision of history as a tulip bulb, a minature Beast of the Apocalypse, a cosmological wormhole, a 19th century parent of Facebook timeline, and its knotty antithesis. See www.astormisblowing.org for more details on the Timekeeper in residence.

0207 679 4138 | h.pike@ucl.ac.uk

Smart, Connected and Participatory explores how emerging technologies are changing the way we access and experience culture and asks questions about the nature of art and technology. New digital applications are shaping our daily lives; the way we live, work, and study, but is digital technology really new? Digital Frontiers unravels digital culture, illustrates the power of emerging applications and poses questions about technology and culture in the past and in the present.

020 7679 3163 | sussanah.chan@ucl.ac.uk

Cast away memories of the Bingo Hall of yesteryear, eyes down and have your dabbers at the ready as we bring you a special night of insect related revelry in our very first bingo night. Gone are the numbers instead we are adding our own Grant Museum twist on the classic game with some beautiful, gruesome and incredible insects from our collection as well as using appropriate entomological puns. Join us as we take an alternative look at the world of insects.

Teams of up to five people; free to enter but booking is essential. To register your team appoint a team captain and book your team on Eventbrite www.beetlebingo.eventbrite.co.uk no need to register individual team members just register your team captain and the number in your team.

020 3108 2052 | d.veall@ucl.ac.uk

Please join us at UCL Art Museum for a pop-up display created by Tom Ue, SSHRC Doctoral Fellow and creator of the Sherlock Holmes: Past and Present conference. The selection of works evocative of mystery, crime and investigations will keep you guessing.

02076792540 | college.art@ucl.ac.uk

Let Gaggle exorcise your demons as the mighty all-women alt choir transforms itself into the daughters of the sun god Ra. Unmoor yourself from the now as artists Russell Jones and Zitrone spin sonic time experiments. Fend off misfortune by making amulets and sporting green eye make up. Make offerings to the infinite waters of Nun by supping black cocktails.

This midsummer rite on UCL’s nearby Wilkins roof garden is part of Petrie Museum’s programme for its Timekeeper installation by Cathy Haynes. The event is a deeply anachronistic take on the ancient Egyptian rites that took place in the spare days between each of its calendar years – an uncertain disordered gap in time when the Eye of Ra – his daughter – could bring you peace or plague.

0207 679 4138 | h.pike@ucl.ac.uk

Join us for a pop-up exhibition devised in tandem with the Sculptural Mobilities, a one-day symposium organised by the department of Scandinavian Studies about the cultural mobility of sculptural artworks.
Come by and see unique works that present the stories of exchanges between the art of the Nordic Countries and Europe.
Pop-in between 1-5pm to find out. Free, no booking required.

02076792540 | college.art@ucl.ac.uk

Join us for a pop-up display combining Japanese woodblock prints and items from UCL's Special Collections to mark the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Choshu Five.
Five young noble men from the Choshu Clan left Japan during the turbulent times of the 1860s and came to study at UCL. On their return to Japan they went on to form the core of a new government. Included amongst them was Ito Hirobumi, the first Prime Minister of modern day Japan, and father of the Japanese Constitution.

Pop-in between 1-5pm to find out. Free, no booking required.
This event is generously supported by the Jardine Matheson Group.

02076792540 | college.art@ucl.ac.uk

Working on a remote island in a secret scientific facility Dr. Radford Baines is attempting to solve world hunger, his solution, to shrink people to half the size. His work has unintended consequences as a group of visitors to the island discover, giant shrews with a taste for human flesh! Will this intrepid group of explorers escape the island with their lives?
Historian of Biology and film-buff Professor Joe Cain (UCL Science and Technology Studies) will introduce what promises to a classic film night film. The film is followed by a free drinks reception in a private view of the Museum. This event is free and there is no need to book.

020 3108 2052 | d.veall@ucl.ac.uk

Join Egyptologist John J Johnston as he takes you around the regular haunts of Professor Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie and his fascinating academic circle during the 'Golden Age' of British Egyptology where you will be introduced to tales of the Egyptologists who lived and worked in Bloomsbury between 1882 and 1933.

0207 679 4138 | h.pike@ucl.ac.uk

Show’N’Tell, that great American tradition, is coming to the Grant Museum of Zoology. We have invited the people who work and research here at UCL to showcase an object from the Museum’s collection and tell you what they know about it. For our very first Show’N’Tell Dr. Brendan Clarke from the Department of Science and Technology Studies will be presenting our fascinating wax model collection. So join us for a lunchtime and discover the stories hidden away in our collection. This event is free and there is no need to book.

020 3108 2052 | d.veall@ucl.ac.uk

The Petrie's Timekeeper Cathy Haynes joins alternative tour guide Rosie Oliver (Dotmaker Tours) for a special version of her tour of London in Slow Motion, looking for pockets of the city where time flows to a different beat.

0207 679 4138 | h.pike@ucl.ac.uk

The tropical rainforests of the world are full of beautiful and bizarre animals. We are starting the summer holidays with a trip into the jungle to uncover the animals that make the jungle their home. Bring along your brave explorer and discover exactly who is swinging in the trees, rustling in the undergrowth and soaring on the breeze. Join us to take part in fun hands-on specimen based activities. This event is free and there is no need to book. Drop in between 1pm and 5pm.

020 3108 2052 | d.veall@ucl.ac.uk