Once you’ve seen how Empire shaped the Grant Museum collections, you’ll never look at natural history museums in the same way again.
Opening today, our new exhibition Displays of Power connects the specimens on display to a wider history of science and Empire, by asking one simple question: “How did all these things come to be here in the first place?”
Come and see how historical teaching and research at UCL fits into the bigger picture of the history of science and imperial collecting in Britain and beyond. What part did UCL play in the international trade of living and dead animals? And how do colonial ways of working and thinking continue to affect the natural world today?
Displays of Power is at the Grant Museum of Zoology until 7 March 2020. Entry is free.
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Join us after dark at UCL for our new Lates programme on the last Thursday of the month.
Get closer to our collections with artists, performers and researchers and enjoy a drink with us in our unmissable museums and galleries. We're kicking things off on 26 September with a night exploring the 19th century obsession with all things ancient Egyptian at the Petrie Museum.
Then face your fears this Halloween with our F**k Up Night, when we'll be embracing failure in all its forms in the Octagon Gallery. Back at the Grant Museum in November, we'll be asking what stories about animal specimens can tell about human power structures, inspired by the new Displays of Power exhibition.
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Free events at the Grant Museum
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See the full programme on our website.
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What's in the jar?
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The Grant Museum contains a staggering number of specimens – the estimate is more than 68,000 – and approximately 10% are fluid preserved specimens. Fluid preservation describes specimens that are preserved in chemicals that protect them from deterioration.
But what is it that keeps these specimens in tip top condition for hundreds of years? Museum Visitor Services Assistant Katie Davenport-Mackey explains it all on the UCL Museums blog.
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Elsewhere at UCL
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Images from top: Illustration by Anna Betts with pattern by Darren Stevens and , Ignacio Echeverria Faccin; Hainan gibbon © Jess Bryant; museum visitors and specimens © Kirsten Holst and Matt Clayton.
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