Saturday 16 November, 10am - 4pm. Free, drop-in
November’s Saturday opening is all about maps, as we host the University’s Dr Sara Caputo for a very special exploration in partnership with the Being Human Festival. Explore the fascinating history of a device we often take for granted, and discover new ways of visualizing our place in the world.
What’s on?
We have been working with a fantastic group of 29 Year 12 students from across the UK, who have co-curated a new exhibition, starting on Sunday 29 September. The students were hosted by Clare College, Cambridge. It is a joint exhibition with the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology (MAA). The exhibition runs throughout the Museum (and the MAA) and is based around the theme of ‘Our power over the natural world’. Do pop in to see the thoughts of these talented young people.
Presenting new and recent paintings, this exhibition will be Portia Zvavahera’s first solo exhibition at a public gallery in Europe. Drawing on southern African culture, Christian iconography, traditional European painting and African printmaking, this exhibition will show artworks informed by the artist’s own dreams and the spiritual traditions she grew up with as a child.
These semi-autobiographical works use layers of colour and texture and various artistic techniques including batik stencilling, block-printing, drawing and painting with ink.
From 21 September, visitors to the Whipple Museum will encounter an example of “guerilla history” - a blue plaque from nearby Bene’t Street which was repeatedly graffitied to acknowledge Rosalind Franklin’s enormous contribution to our understanding of genetics. The plaque will go on display for the first time, and will be exhibited alongside Franklin’s own handwritten DNA research notes from early 1953.
Discover six awesome species from around the world and how they have adapted to their environments.
Consider what you can do to help nature thrive.
Share what you think in our interactive display.
The Whipple Museum has recently acquired the blue plaque, originally dedicated to Crick and Watson, which was repeatedly graffitied to acknowledge the contribution which Rosalind Franklin made to the discovery of the structure of DNA. Director Joshua Nall will talk more about Franklin's story, one of her notebooks (on loan from the Churchill archives) and why telling the stories of women in science is important to the Whipple Museum. This is a drop in talk, no booking required.
Join us for Fungi Field Day at the Botanic Garden to celebrate fungi and their relationships with plants in the run up to UK Fungus Day. Highlights include:
🍄 A range of talks from expert speakers about fungi and their interactions with plants.
🔬Science outreach stall with microscopes to view fungi that live deep inside plant roots.
About Peter de Bolla
Peter de Bolla has been Professor of Cultural History and Aesthetics since 2009 at the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. He has been a visiting Professor in Siegen, at Vanderbilt and will be at New York University in the Fall of 2014 and in Uppsala in the fall of 2015. He is Director of the Cambridge Concept Lab in the Cambridge Centre for Digital Knowledge at CRASSH.
Widely regarded as one of the leading contemporary artists working today, Ligon is best known for his text-based paintings which include the words of writers such as James Baldwin, Gertrude Stein and Zora Neale Hurston. Through these artworks, he explores the social, cultural and political constructions of race.
Megan Rooney’s paintings have an irresistible life and energy. Each work tells a compelling story, poetically recalling the real, the remembered and the imagined – inviting visitors into their restless and pleasurable worlds. This exhibition includes an immersive mural across all four gallery walls, along with a display new paintings.
This tour is suitable for blind and visually impaired visitors. The tour is delivered in person by members of the Kettle’s Yard Learning Team and will include time within the exhibition spaces.
