Museum Remix: Unheard is an experiment in museum storytelling.

This collage shows the arms and torso of the Empress Josephine spliced together with the josephine imperatricis plant, positione where her head would be. Hummingbirds, ladybirds and butterflies flutter around the plant. Josephine faces the sitter, with her right arm slightly raised in front of a golden crown. Her white silk dress has a high empire-line waist and ruffles around the square neckline. The plant has a pyramidal shape with large, serrated leaves from a central stem, and is topped with a bloom of small white flowers.
Helen Grundy's collage Josephine Hybrid remixes one of the Fitzwilliam Museum's botanical watercolours, Josephinia imperatricis 

Help us remix and retell the stories behind the University of Cambridge Museums' under-explored objects. Create new artwork and we'll share it here on our website, on our social media channels, and from our galleries.

Tell the stories that need to be told

Scroll down to the bottom of this page, and you'll find curators from across our museums presenting a range of objects with unheard stories. Choose one or more and apply your own creative interpretation, either to the object(s) themselves or their histories. Everything else is up to you!

Previously, we've run Sound, Visual Art and Video challenges, but this time the medium is your choice. Want to record an audio play? A mini-podcast, or a poem? A performance piece? A graphic novel? Music? It's entirely up to you.

All we ask is that any video or audio clip be a maximum of 3 minutes long, and an image file be a maximum of 1GB.

Need inspiration? You can find previous Remix artworks on our Discover page.

This opportunity is open until 31 December 2020.

Purple and grey painting showing a woman and a centaur fighting. The figures are fragmentary. The woman, on the left, wears a draped dress and is shown with her left elbow up, knocking the face of the bearded centaur in grey as he attempts to grab at her. Lines behind the pair evoke the impact and force of the woman's arm.
Female Power by Victoria Chong remixes a sculptural group in the Museum of Classical Archaeology

Why you should take part

  • Create new art and interpretation
  • Tell the stories that need to be heard 
  • Have your work shared on our social media
  • Be in with the chance for your work to be included in an online exhibition and accessible from the museums' galleries.

What do you need?

  • A phone or digital camera.
  • Access to the internet.

Great! Sign me up!

Visit our further information page to find out how to submit.

 

Why now?

The collections of the University of Cambridge Museums span four billion years and all seven continents. We are good at collecting. But we haven't always been good at listening. George Doji, Museum Remix host, tells us more:

 

 

The header image for this page is an extract from The Museum of Life, an artwork produced for our 2019 Museum Remix project.

 

Objects

From
Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences

Theo Sayers imagines the story behind an archive photograph in the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences.

Music
The Polar Museum

Sacred carvings made by the Nenets people of North Siberia

Film
Museum of Classical Archaeology

How can we give voice to an enslaved woman who died two thousand years ago?

Film
The Polar Museum

A portrait that reveals the relationship between exploration and exploitation

Film
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Museum of Classical Archaeology

For Museum Remix: Unheard, Sade Ojelade and Eleanor Wilkinson answer your questions about their chosen objects live on YouTube

Livestream
Whipple Museum of the History of Science

Dive into the miniature world of tiny marine creatures

 

Spoken word
Kettle's Yard

A portrait of an unknown woman

Film
The Fitzwilliam Museum

An "unbroken marriage of souls"

Film
Whipple Museum of the History of Science

200-year-old spectacles that help us see changing attitudes to disability

Film
The Fitzwilliam Museum

A botanical watercolour reveals the connection between science and empire

Film
The Fitzwilliam Museum

16th-century knights led dangerous lives

 

Film
Museum of Classical Archaeology

A tiny figurine head from Roman Egypt

Film
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences

For Museum Remix: Unheard, Liz Hide and Helen Ritchie answer questions about their Museum Remix objects live on YouTube

Livestream
The Polar Museum

A well-travelled typewriter

 

Film
Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences

Diamonds with a dark past

 

Film
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

A mask with many unheard stories

Film
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

An intriguing pair of necklaces from early human history

 

Film
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

A small plate with a big story

Film
Whipple Museum of the History of Science

Who counts as a scientist?

Film
The Fitzwilliam Museum

How should we approach the Queen who became a symbol of the British Empire itself?

 

 

Film
Museum of Classical Archaeology

Why are we reluctant to engage with the idea of a woman taking part in a battle?

Film
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

How do we untangle complex colonial histories to reach the unnamed sitter of these portraits?

Film
Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences

Photograph with an untold story

Film