In an ideal world, museums would make visiting easier by…
In early 2018, the University of Cambridge Museums (UCM) started thinking about how we could help children with sensory sensitivities and their families to access the museums in a way that worked for them. “People aren’t aware you’ve used every ounce of your energy to get there [the museum]” Parent from focus group “It was a really special opportunity to…
Women’s Voices at the Museum of Zoology
Think of a scientist. Who came to mind? Charles Darwin? Isaac Newton? Stephen Hawking? There has been research over the years showing how people unconsciously associate the word scientist with male. The histories that we can easily find in our collections typically relate to men, and reinforce this stereotype. This is something I have long found frustrating – there are…
Lessons learnt: engaging with Māori taonga
The exhibition Tū te Whaihanga: A Recognition of Creative Genius opened at dawn on Monday 7th October 2019 at the Tairāwhiti Museum, Gisborne, Aotearoa New Zealand. It featured 37 taonga (Māori ancestral treasures) traded and gifted with James Cook and the crew of the Endeavour and the Tahitian priest-navigator Tupaia during encounters in the Tairāwhiti area in 1769. Over half of the taonga were from the Sandwich collection, on deposit at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, (MAA) from Trinity College, Cambridge. These included a rain cloak of flax, wood, bone and stone weapons, fishhooks and two…
