The emergence of Empathy
“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.” Bonhoeffer Although I may be hedging my bets by opening my first ever blog...
View ArticleExchanging Knowledge through the Cultural Heritage Fellowship programme
guest blogger: Tonya Nelson (Petrie Museum Manager) This year UCL Museums and Public Engagement entered into an exciting partnership with the British Council to develop and deliver a Fellowship...
View ArticleDo you use ‘Curate’ when ‘Organise’ will do? Well you shouldn’t…
Inspired by my colleague Mark’s excellent blog ‘How to tell an archaeologist from a palaeontologist’ (read it here) I thought I’d dedicate my blog to my own particular bug bear: The use of the word...
View ArticleWhat’s in a name? Outreach with a capital “O”…
So the time has come for me to write my first blog post and, after an initial panic, I decided that this would be an opportune moment to talk about Outreach: What it is, why we do it, and what it...
View ArticleA Review, of sorts, of Treasures at the Natural History Museum
Treasures is the new permanent exhibition at the Natural History Museum (NHM) which “displays 22 of the most extraordinary specimens that have ever been on show at the Museum”. I’d been excited about...
View ArticleThe Micrarium – a place for tiny things – opens
Here at the Grant Museum we’re not afraid to try something big or something new. This time we’re doing just that with something small and something old, with a topic which has traditionally been...
View ArticleIntroducing Culture Vulture… Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men: A review
Culture Vulture: A vulture skull in UCL Art MuseumWe’ve been doing a few exhibition reviews on the blog lately, and after the unprecedented success of the new Book Worm series (launched yesterday) we...
View ArticleUniversity Challenge: exploring university and museum relationships in the...
Museum of Brands, QRator Project Museums and universities teaming up to score shared rewards In the autumn of 2012, Arts Council England funded University College London [UCL], the University of Arts...
View ArticleConsidering our History – the Good Times
Students taught in the Museum by E Ray Lankester in 1887Last week we launched six new permanent displays telling the story of the history of the Grant Museum, focusing on the story of how the teaching...
View ArticleVolunteer call out for Touching Heritage project
Object Handling in the community If you are someone who is passionate about heritage, interested in health and wellbeing, and keen to volunteer in an innovative heritage-in-health project – we want to...
View ArticleWill a museum studies degree help you get a job in a museum?
This post is a bit inside baseball, but then so is the metaphor inside baseball. We get asked the above question at the Grant Museum frequently by aspiring museum professionals and volunteers and it’s...
View ArticleCulture Vulture: Ice Age Art: arrival of the modern mind at the British Museum
Culture Vulture: A vulture skull in UCL Art Museum This is the second of our Culture Vulture exhibition reviews (the first is here) As I mentioned in an earlier article about whether a degree in museum...
View ArticleCan museums improve your health and wellbeing?
Patients at University College Hospital enjoying an object handling sessionFor several years a team of researchers in UCL Museums have been investigating the role of touch and object handling in health...
View ArticleGrant Museum Objects on Tour: Lost Labels
Lost labels from the Grant Museum. Last week, the exhibition Nature Reserves opened at GV Art, London a group exhibition examining the relationship between how humans interpret and archive the natural...
View ArticleRiding on the crest of a ware
I’m quite partial to memorabilia, and I have a passionate interest in the life and work of Flinders Petrie, not just because he’s a an impressively beardy archaeologist and legend, but also because for...
View ArticleHappy 130th Quagga Day – Maybe more extinct than we thought
130 years ago today, 12th August 1883, the last ever quagga died. As custodians of one of the only quagga skeletons in existence, we consider it our responsibility to commemorate the tragic passing of...
View ArticleEurope’s First Kangaroo and the Grant Museum: Save our Stubbs
James Cook’s landing in Australia in 1770 changed the political, social and natural world. With regards to the latter, the animals the expedition discovered, described and exported have had profound...
View ArticleA week in the life of a Curator
People often ask me what it is I do for a job. “Well” I answer, “I’m a curator”. Me in the micrarium atthe Grant Museum. “Yes, but what do you actually do?” “I curate a collection, I help look after...
View ArticleThe best natural history specimen in the world (did not get thrown on a fire)
Last week I saw something that had never occurred to me might be possible to see. Through the years I have learned a lot about this object – I knew where it was, I knew where it came from and I...
View ArticleNATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM BINGO!
My colleague Jack Ashby alluded to the Natural History Bingo Card in a recent blog post so I thought I’d take the time to present it to the wide world! Natural history museums are funny places. Despite...
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