Wellcome Collection, in London, is a free museum and library that aims to challenge how we all think and feel about health. Between December 2016 and May 2017, Wellcome staged Making Nature: how we see animals, an exhibition examining what we think, feel and value about other species and the consequences this has for the world around us.
The exhibition featured some typically intriguing content: specimens from the Center for Post Natural History – including a bio-steel goat whose milk can be used to make silk; taxidermied animals arranged by the artist Abbas Akhavan to look like they were actually dead (as opposed to taxidermy’s traditional live poses) and ‘displayed’ throughout the galleries for unsuspecting visitors to encounter; and the film Ming of Harlem documenting the extraordinary story of Antoine Yates who lived with a tiger called Ming (and a five-and-a-half foot alligator) in his apartment in Harlem!
I worked with Wellcome’s Youth team to conduct detailed curriculum research to inform programme development for schools. I then created a resource for GCSE science and art students to support learning both in the exhibition and through related pre and post-visit classroom activities.
You can view the Making Nature learning resource here.
Anna Husband 