Curating the Sea

Syperek, Pandora; Wade, Sarah

doi:10.1386/jcs_00018_2

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 3 publications

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“…Notably, this redisplay has been followed by the Natural History Museum's declaration of a Planetary Emergency in January 2020 together with a strategy in which the Museum commits to tackling biodiversity loss, expanding on the ways it engages the public in ecological issues and delivering on an ambitious sustainability plan (Natural History Museum, 2020). The turn to ocean ecology in recent curatorial practice ranging from large-scale permanent displays in national museums of maritime and natural history to transient exhibitions of contemporary art prompted us to embark on the research project Curating the Sea, which began with a symposium at the Institute of Advanced Studies at University College London in 2018 and will culminate in a special issue of the Journal of Curatorial Studies (Syperek and Wade, 2020). The replacement of the Natural History Museum's much-loved dinosaur with the blue whale in 2017 was a formative moment for Curating the Sea, prompting us to approach Lowe and Sabin to discuss their work and document this moment in the Museum's contemporary history.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Curating Ocean Ecology at the Natural History Museum: Miranda Lowe and Richard Sabin in conversation with Pandora Syperek and Sarah Wade

Syperek¹,

Wade²,

Lowe³

et al. 2023

Science Museum Group Journal

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The current ecological crisis and the call to decolonise museums can be catalysts for change, manifested both physically through exhibitions or redisplays of historical collections and conceptually through new curatorial approaches or interventions. This interview examines the strategies and considerations involved in a major redisplay at the Natural History Museum, London, in 2017. Here, 'Dippy' the Diplodocus was removed from the prime central hall location, causing a furore that soon gave way to celebration of its newly installed resident 'Hope' the blue whale, heralding a new paradigm of scientific display where an anthropogenic extinction narrative took centre stage in a world-renowned museum. Alongside the blue whale, a series of 'Wonder Bays' were installed which tell stories of evolution, biodiversity and sustainability. Curators Miranda Lowe and Richard Sabin discuss these recent displays in relation to extinction narratives, public ecological awareness, ideals of authenticity and the crossover of art and science. They reflect on how the politics of natural history display extend to broader global issues, including the illegal wildlife trade and decolonising the museum, focusing on presentations of marine life and ocean ecology to reflect their principal areas of expertise and the Natural History Museum's recent ocean-themed programming.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Curating Ocean Ecology at the Natural History Museum: Miranda Lowe and Richard Sabin in conversation with Pandora Syperek and Sarah Wade

Syperek¹,

Wade²,

Lowe³

et al. 2023

Science Museum Group Journal

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Mountains on Display: Curating Time, Uncontrollability and Vulnerable Ecosystems at Haus der Berge and Norsk Fjellsenter

Fojuth

2023

Museum International

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Concretion

Quigley¹

2023

Critical Times

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The ruins of wrecked ships are often so thoroughly dispersed by their submarine environments as to practically vanish. Sometimes, however, the conditions of a wreck’s submergence create complex modes of material endurance. Concretion, which names both a substance that forms on certain immersed surfaces and the phenomenon of that substance’s formation, is one such mode. Inspired by maritime-archeological objects and practices, this article asks how concretion—from the Latin concrēscĕre for “to grow together”—marks and reworks imperial alongside other presences at the seabed. The article develops a hermeneutics of benthic becoming at intersections in literary studies, critical theory, cultural geography, and recent subsea turns in the oceanic (and more broadly environmental) humanities. Wrecky concretion, I argue, configures the thickening presences of empire’s remains in the course of their underwater lives and in company with seawater, marine organisms, and inanimate beings. In this way, manifestly imperial presences actively coincide with others—and with the agencies, memories, and affects such presences may be understood to express (and not). Pivotally informed by Édouard Glissant’s critical deeps, Derek Walcott’s “The Sea Is History” (1978), and the politics of memory enacted by the Slave Wrecks Project and Diving with a Purpose, I observe a few of the ways that concretion may be punctuating and revising oceanic spaces, memories, and times. If the world ocean has long been unevenly composed by modernity, capitalism, and empire, it has also been reforming the wrecked stuff it receives into unanticipated configurations, growings-together that these pages provisionally ascertain.

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Curating the Sea

Cited by 4 publications

References 3 publications

Curating Ocean Ecology at the Natural History Museum: Miranda Lowe and Richard Sabin in conversation with Pandora Syperek and Sarah Wade

Curating Ocean Ecology at the Natural History Museum: Miranda Lowe and Richard Sabin in conversation with Pandora Syperek and Sarah Wade

Mountains on Display: Curating Time, Uncontrollability and Vulnerable Ecosystems at Haus der Berge and Norsk Fjellsenter

Concretion

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