The Herbert Art Museum & Gallery

The few, the brave, the bold - the staff and volunteers at Coventry's Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, and their musty, dusty, sharp-eyed and slightly surreal adventures down the rabbithole. "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here."

[theherbert-blog]

Whales on the brain...

so i have been posting alot about the dusty whale problems. And now im thoroughly hooked on the things! So I figured I would make a post about Whale evolution which I find quite interesting (I know, get a life Sam)

Most people know that Whales are not fish, they are mammals like you and me. But iv always wondered just how they ended up in the water?

Basically, Whales closest living relative are hippos. Which only come on land to mate, birth and graze and otherwise spend all their time in the water. So it becomes abit easier to see how whales made this transition. Unlike other animals like pigs, hippos and deer (all relatives of the Whale.... i know....MIND. BLOWN.)  the whale eats meat. Really really tiny meat, but meat nontheless.  Generally this is because meat has more calories and a bloody big whale has to keep warm in near freezing water somehow!  This diet though indicates that its anscestor had to be meat eating also.

Recent discovery of the earliest known protowhale have pinned down this carnivorous ancestory... prepare to have you mind blow...again...

press 'read more' to see the earliest know proto-whale....

OOWER!

[sarahfinch-blog]

[theherbert-blog]

sarahfinch:

Throughout my time at The Herbert I have been tackling the on-going task of updating catalogue entries for the Toys and Games collection.

The scope of the collection spans from Victorian toys such as spinning tops and marbles to more modern items such as Lego and a Playstation. As well as children’s toys there are also more adult items such as card games and collectable items, for example, doll’s house furniture. The toys and games are a popular aspect of the museum’s history gallery because of the nostalgia that visitors feel when they see items associated with their childhood memories. There is a sense of gratification in seeing the items that you treasured as a child also being treasured and cared for by a museum

I recently picked out a few of my favourite items to show during the museum’s open store tours which were a part of Heritage Open Weekend. The collection selected included some boxes of Lego with 1960s packaging, a beautiful Victorian toy cooking stove and a 1970s Buckaroo game which oddly I remember from my childhood, despite growing up in the 1990s! I also chose to talk about a Victorian Pope St Joan board game (pictured below). This is a game designed to be played with cards and counters, which fit into the dividers on the board, and are used to bet with. The game was named after Pope John VIII who was rumoured to have gone into labour while on horseback during a papal procession and therefore revealed to be a woman! If you were unlucky enough to get the Pope St Joan card, the nine of diamonds, then all your counters would be surrendered to the dealer.

Two of my favourite objects in the collection were chosen for the tour because of the interesting story they carried. While updating the locations of the toys and games collection I came across a slightly scruffy looking pull-along wooden dog and a wooden ‘pecking chickens’ toy. On looking up their catalogue entry I discovered that these toys had been hand-crafted by prisoners of war during the 1940s. The donor of these toys was a refugee of the Coventry Blitz. She had received the toys as a gift from Polish and Czech prisoners of war who were working on a farm near Leamington Spa, where she was staying. These items demonstrate the joy of working with social history collections in discovering surprising stories behind ordinary objects.

[theherbert-blog]

Heritage Open Weekend - Store Tours

Bit of a late post but last weekend Sarah, Sam and I had the opportunity to help out with some behind the scene tours of the Herbert stores.  This was in aid of Heritage open weekend in the West Midlands.  Also on offer at the Herbert was a tour of the Under croft and a History fair in the covered court, so the place was rather busy.  

On the Saturday, Sarah, Sam and I each had 5/10 minutes to talk about what we had been doing at the Herbert and show some interesting items from the collections.  On each tour there should have been a maximum of 10 people but on occasion it went up to about 15. Limiting the numbers was necessary to maintain a suitable environment for the items in store. The combination of the noisy air conditioning units and the bustle of the group meant we had to raise our voices somewhat.  To add to the pressure, our friends and families had booked themselves onto the tours as well!

In store one, I showed the different groups various Visual Arts items that had recently been acquired through the Heritage Lottery Fund Collecting Cultures project. The images above and below shows a couple of sculptures from the Roaring Girls series by Al Johnson which comments on the involvement of women in warfare. To find out more about her work, click here. I haven't actually been working directly with this project but found the pieces really interesting.  In line with the project, the Herbert collects works that fit into the themes of conflict, peace and reconciliation. All of the items acquired through this project will be shown in an exhibition at the end of 2012, so watch out if you're interested! 

Sarah then spoke about her role as the Social History intern and chose some lovely toys and games to show the group. One of her favourite items was a buckaroo game from the 70s and some retro Lego boxes complete with amusing pictures of a sailor with very long sideburns.  It was great to see the tour group being interested in the objects and reminisce about their childhood.

Sam's talk followed in store two with the Natural History collection, where he handed out some corals for the tour group to hold. This was really nice as corals are more robust than delicate toys and expensive artworks, so the group could get involved by touching the objects and get a feel for what Sam deals with on a daily basis. Sam also dealt with a rather demanding member of the tour group who asked several questions on the life of corals, putting Sam on the spot but he handled it very well.  He also was very dedicated and came in on the Sunday to do it all again!

The open weekend was a great experience to be able to talk to the public and show them behind the scenes.  It was also rewarding to be able to pass on a bit of knowledge and proved that my fellow interns and I knew our stuff.

[amnhnyc]

[theherbert-blog]

As a follow up to my last post about the Dusty Whale Conundrum, this is the finished product, all vacuumed, dusted and good as new. I have to say, it looks fantastic! this is the largest model of a blue whale in the world and just look at it! it looks so much more organic than the model in Londons NHM. It really is like its swimming in air, and its colouring doesn't look like it was done with wholesale paint from the local Cosco.... If NHM ever plan to redo their mammal show room (and god knows they need to) then they really should look here for their inspiration.

[theherbert-blog]

This is a selection of the corals I have been working on at The Herbert Museum. Yesterday, after two long months, I finally finished identifying and cataloging the entire collection in the Herbert's natural history store. Internet high-five, everyone!

The collection is an amalgam of two separate collections donated to or exchanged with the Herbert museum by other institutions. Warwick Museum traded their corals for the herbology collection that was kept here, and Leamington Museum donated their sizable collection of about 150 corals.

In total, the Herbert's coral collection encompasses well over 250 different specimens, spanning a massive array of genera and species. Identifying them all has been quite the undertaking, given the incredible multiplicity of corals in the wild. For example, the genus Acropora alone can be subdivided into about 400 different species. 400! Sometimes Mother Nature just doesn't know when to give it (or my poor intern brain) a rest.

I've determined that the Warwick and Leamington corals that make up the bulk of the Herbert collection have primarily been sourced from the Indo-Pacific Ocean; some key localities represented include the Red Sea, Indonesia, India, Madagascar, and Australia. Some examples in the Leamington collection have also been sourced from West Central Atlantic waters, and I've concluded that these have been subsequent donations into the collection from other parties.

With the exception of one, all the corals in the collection are what we call 'geologically recent', meaning that they're from the end of the Tertiary period (about 2.6 million years ago!) through to the Quaternary period, which spans up to the present day. These geologically recent corals fall into two orders:

Scleractinians  

Stolonifera

The Stolonifera are 'soft corals', and are some of the oldest forms of life on Earth. They range from the Cambrian period to the present and include organisms such as sea whips, sea pens, gorgonians and Tubipora. All the Stolonifera are recognizable by their 8-fold symmetry, and are therefore identified by the subclass 'Octocorallia'.

The Scleractinians, or 'stony corals', are where the bulk of the Herbert collection lie. They are recognizable by their 6-fold symmetry, and so come under the subclass 'Hexacorallia'.  There are 16 families of Scleractinians in existance today, and 14 of them are represented in the Herbert collection.

The evolution of Scleractinians from the Triassic period onward (and their inferred origin in the Permian) can be seen below. Note the lack of Tubipora as this is an Stolonifera coral.

Within the two orders of Scleractinia and Stolonifera, the majority of the corals in the Herbert collection belong to one of the following genera:

Acroporidae

Acropora 

Montipora

Pocilloporidae

Pocillopora

Faviidae

Diploria

Platygyra

Tubiporidae

Tubipora

The large proportion of Acropora and Montipora in the collection isn't surprising, given that together, these genera encompass some 750-odd individual species. However, some of the Pocillopora encountered are pretty uncommon in reef groups and require very specific environments to thrive. Montipora, on the other hand, is a bit of a pioneer genus and is far more hardy and resilient to environmental fluctuations and change. This is why it's common to find Montipora in aqua-cultures and aquariums, while its sister taxa, Acropora, is far more sensitive and difficult to rear in an aqua-culture, and wouldn't survive.

And as for the one coral that isn't geologically recent? That one is a fossil coral from the order Tabulata - an order of corals that became extinct at the end of the Permian period, over 251 million years ago.

If that wasn't quite cool enough for you, some of the more fascinating finds in the Herbert's collection also include:

A piece of Acropora palmata, or Caribbean elkhorn coral, a critically endangered red-listed species of coral which has been declining in numbers for the last 30 years. Once the most abundant species of coral in the Caribbean, a whopping 98% of its total population has been wiped out over the last three decades by an aggressive disease called white pox. For years, the origin of this disease has been a mystery to marine biologists, but in recent months the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia has begun to shed light on the enigma surrounding the devastating pathogen. If you're a science bod, you can read more about this disease here.

A specimen of Symphyllia - an extremely rare and sought after coral in the aquarium community with an amazing potential for use in bio-medicines. The species produces a mucus which makes it incredibly resistant to disease. This mucus is being cultured by bio-engineers and chemists to produce new and effective treatments for cancer, HIV and bacterial infections that are becoming increasing resistant to conventional antibiotics.

[thomforsyth]

[theherbert-blog]

This just came up on my tumblr feed on one of the many contemporary art tumblrs I follow. I think its safe to say I shall never sleep soundly again. Whoever thought a good art concept would be to have ethereal wraiths dotted around randomly for people to encounter was clearly one mean person!

The use of light is very clever and I suppose the idea of the complete motionless in nature gives them that 'timeless' setting, but I think it should probably be done in a more controlled environment. So as not to mentally scar any children that happen upon these Nazgul-esque characters and have a violent Lord-Of-The-Rings-inspired-episode.

[theherbert-blog]

Heritage Shared: Asian Life in Britain Archive Open Day

Now that we're coming to the end of our internships, I've been helping put the final touches in place for Heritage Shared: Asian Life in Britain Archive Open Day.  This is a free drop-in event that will be held in the Herbert's History Centre on Saturday 24th September (10:30am - 3:30pm).

The event will showcase the History Centre's impressive collection relating to Coventry's South Asian community - from newspaper cuttings and Punjabi magazines to Indian Workers' Association (see photograph of the 1953 committee above) publications and rare Punjabi prose and poetry. 

My favourite item from this unique archive is a film taken by an English regiment posted in India in the 1920s/1930s.  The footage shows the regiment exploring the country by car and rail, taking in some of India's most famous sights.  It provides a fascinating glimpse of colonial life in India for Indian people working in towns, on the rails and in agriculture.  There are entertaining clips of the regiment in their spare time hunting, swimming and playing tennis.  For costume fanatics, the film showcases early twentieth century taste in fashion and the fineries enjoyed by the wealthy.  For those with an interest in transport and industry the film includes scenes of horse-draw carts, motor cars, trains and Indian people working on the development of the railways.

In addition I've been cataloguing the vast collection of photographs donated for the Herbert's Coming to Coventry exhibition. 

Along with a substantial oral history archive, these provide valuable insight into the lives of men and women who migrated to Coventry from the 1940s to the 1960s.  The photographs will be displayed for Heritage Shared in an audio slideshow; the images accompanied by the melodies of Punjabi folk poetry.  These fascinating photographs show family life, weddings and celebrations and working life as well as sport and leisure activities amongst a variety of themes.

I've also spent some time in the Herbert's stores selecting objects that will be displayed on the day.  These objects include coins and medals, silk postcards and a knife brought back from India after the Second World War, reflecting the range of artefacts in the museum's collection.

This special opportunity to view the Herbert's significant collection has been organised for the Anglo-Sikh Heritage Trail's Heritage Shared month.

[theherbert-blog]

Dusty Whales?

amnhnyc:

On Sept. 7, 2011, a special team from the Museum’s Exhibition Department vacuumed and brushed the famous blue whale model hanging in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life. 

At 21,000 pounds, the Museum’s blue whale is the largest model of the planet’s largest known animal. Though blue whales can weigh over 300,000 pounds, scientists still know remarkably little about the species because these whales spend much of their time in deep or remote waters.

Looks like dusty whales are a common problem for museums. Its definitely about time that NHM dusted down their mammals showroom. It was shockingly bad last time I visited.

[theherbert-blog]

Famous! Famous on the internet!

Herbertmates, if I have egregiously misrepresented anyone, I am sorry - I wrote that email before noon, a.k.a. the hour when any reasonable person can be expected to be cogent, and did not realise it was on the record. Oops?

[thomforsyth]

[theherbert-blog]

thomforsyth:

Stone Sculptures, Lee jea-hyo

The geologist in me loves this. The museum man in me also does. What really fascinates me is... How are so many rocks suspended from so little? that must weigh at least half a tonne!

[theherbert-blog]

Spreadsheets are fun!

Where by 'fun', I of course mean, 'argh help I'm blind'.

Museums: all glamour, all the time, yes indeedy.

[theherbert-blog]

Movie time!

As a lover of all things history (and because it's one of my favorite books ever), I sat down this weekend and watched Angels and Demons. For those that hated The Da Vinci Code movie (I'm totally with you), give this a try. It was a LOT closer to the book than I expected. But, I digress.

Even though it was only a movie, the conservator in me virtually died when Vittoria ripped out that page from The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo). The last remaining copy in existence. Anywhere. Written on papyrus. Kept hidden in the Vatican Archives and perfect temperature and at partial vacuum. And she just rips it out. It might as well have been my heart!

If you're a museum professional, I recommend watching this one with a stiff drink.

[shrooooom-blog]

[theherbert-blog]

The romance of a full moon sometimes gets the better of Acropora millepora. The 2-millimeter-tall polyp, which forms vast coral reefs in the Southern Ocean, holes up in its marine fortress and waits for the moon to shift from its usual blue hue to a redder glow. Then it waits a bit more. If this red glow is followed by several days during which no moonlight is visible—an event that occurs only in the days following a full moon—these marine creatures know it’s time for some serious synchronized sex. They release millions of eggs and sperm within a period of 20 minutes, ensuring that some young will survive parrotfish and other predators, researchers report this week in The Journal of Experimental Biology. That may explain why pilots often see red, 10-kilometer-long slicks of coral gametes a couple of days after a full moon.

[theherbert-blog]

Museums: If You Think You're Hard Enough

Further to my last post, a British answer to Jenny Burrows' and Matt Keppler's radalicous Historically Hardcore posters.

Institutionally non-specific, of course.

Anyone else have any ideas? Answer here, or head on over to our Ask box!

[theherbert-blog]

[I'd like to apologise in advance for how long this post is. I just have a lot of feelings! Well, that and Tumblr doesn't allow 'Read More' breaks on photo posts. Foiled again.]

So for the past few weeks, I've had these two gems printed out and propped up on either side of my computer monitor at work. I know, you've all already seen them, and think they're awesome - I think they're awesome too, but that isn't the reason I keep them there. Not the only reason, anyway. I like to have them there as a sort of moral lesson in Letting Go.

If you've read the story of how these came about (of which you can find more here), you know that they were created by artist Jenny Burrows and copywriter Matt Keppler as part of a portfolio project - the idea being to devise an advertising campaign for the Smithsonian Museum that would appeal to a high school and college-aged demographic. Somebody stumbled across their online portfolio, submitted the posters to Reddit, and the rest is history.

Or, not quite.

The posters went viral. Like, really viral. Front-page-on-Reddit viral. Phonecalls-from-Washington-DC-news-outlets viral. Great, right? Not exactly. See, the posters you're looking at above aren't the ones that spread so rapidly across the internet, and garnered such great acclaim. Remember, they were created as a mock Smithsonian advertising campaign; where you see a general 'Museums' logo now, the originals sported the logo of that venerable institution. And they weren't too happy about all the attention.

After contacting the Smithsonian, Jenny Burrows replaced the logo on the posters. The only problem is, that's precisely why they went viral in the first place. To quote from the artist's own blog:

Our goal was to reach high school and college students, to try and engage them in a subject that many of them find extremely boring. To encourage them to learn more about people who they might have disregarded as stiff and dull. I think I can say without a doubt, if this had been a real campaign, it would have been immensely successful.

I have seen so many people commenting, saying things like "I want to go to the Smithsonian now!" and "History is awesome! I want these on my wall!"  (Seriously, I have.) 

People were excited - not only by the cleverness of the posters, but to see an institution as capital-R Respectable as the Smithsonian engaging so playfully with pop culture. To see them talking to young people without trying to patronise them, and without sounding forced. To see the Smithsonian just plain not taking themselves too seriously.

Naturally, the Smithsonian couldn't be having with that.

Okay, I'm not exactly being fair. The Smithsonian is a massive entity, after all, and government-run to boot. For every person there who was unhappy at having lost control over their image, I'm sure there were a dozen who loved the posters and would have been just as happy to endorse them. But them's the breaks, not just for the Smithsonian, but for any institution paid for out of somebody else's pockets.

Still. This is nothing if not a demonstration of people-power - the very people the Smithsonian, like all museums everywhere, has no doubt struggled to engage. Sometimes you can harness that people-power... but sometimes it just happens. And putting your foot down never works half so well as letting it happen. As letting go.

This campaign was created for free, by people with an obvious affection for the Smithsonian. All this publicity was generated for free, by internet denizens who were excited and energised by the Smithsonian's willingness to take risks; to poke fun at the perceived stuffiness of museums with a wink and a tip of the hat. Now, when I read recaps of the whole affair on this blog or that, it's a different story altogether. Nobody's ranting and raving at the Smithsonian, to be sure but there's a distinct whiff of resignation whenever the story arrives at its inevitable conclusion.

We're not angry, Smithsonian. We're just disappointed.

Museums like to talk the talk about letting go - but that's a far cry from walking the walk. And if we mean it when we say that we want to let go, to democratise knowledge and create a collective, participatory ownership of culture and history, should we be doing the same when it comes to our image? If we want it to become Their museum instead of Ours, do we contradict ourselves if we insist on controlling how They see Us?

To end on a lighter note (and one that won't have Marketing coming after me in the night), I've been scratching my head trying to think of what a British answer to these terribly American posters might look like. Anybody have any ideas?

[theherbert-blog]

What's In Store - Display Day!

Today is the day we took the plunge and installed our 'Journey' themed displays in the What's In Store gallery. This morning we installed Sophie's 'pilgrimage' case and my 'travel' case as well as a case featuring a recently conserved painting and a newly acquired model barge. Sam's 'souvenirs' case is to be installed this afternoon so stay tuned!

[theherbert-blog]

Dressed to Impress!

Recently I was given the opportunity to re-display the costume cupboard in the What's In Store gallery. This has been one of my favourite tasks completed for The Herbert so far as it gave an excuse for wondering up and down the racks of the costume store and admiring the fashions of the past. The only down point was that I couldn't try anything on as the slightest touch can affect the longevity of costume; this is perhaps just aswell as the waistlines of Victorian dresses tend to be frighteningly small!

I chose the theme of 'Clothing for Special Occasions' as it allowed me to choose some of the more aesthetically pleasing items in the collection, I was told that the dresses in particular are popular with visitors. It was also my intention to represent occasion wear from different periods as well as costume worn by both men and women.

The display includes a 1920s flapper dress, a full morning suit with top hat, a Victorian wedding dress, a navy officer's evening outfit and a pair of ballroom dancing dresses from the 1960s. In selecting the items I ensured that there was some interesting contextual information available, particularly if the item related to Coventry. I was even able to find a photograph of the owner of the ballroom dresses wearing one at a competition (see below).