Image courtesy of the National Museum of Ireland Natural History
Still Lives: Organic and Digital Animals in the Natural History Museum
Natural history museums have an essential role in educating publics about the biodiversity crisis and the sixth mass extinction. Despite this urgency, and despite the radical reconfiguration of viewing habits necessitated by the current pandemic, there is little scholarship about the way we exhibit natural history collections on digital platforms. Funded by a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship, Still Lives is a 2-year IRC Fellowship investigating the transformation of animal specimens from organic media, such as taxidermy and skeletal mounts, to digital media such as 3-D printing, virtual tours, and databases. The project is led by Dr Verity Burke, and is based in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Trinity College Dublin.
As part of the project, an online event series, The Unnatural History Museum: Mediating Nature in the Sixth Mass Extinction, will be run throughout the academic year of 2022-23. Please click here for more information and to book.
