Museum Remix: Unheard

In the Museum of Classical Archaeology's Cast Gallery two wrestlers are locked together in eternal combat... and an eternal embrace. 

Colin Clews untangles the queer resonances of one of classical antiquity's most famous sculptures in this extract from his Bridging Binaries tour.

Part of the University of Cambridge Museums' Bridging Binaries LGBTQ+ tour programme.

MOCA

Wrestle through a muscular history

Klara Widrig explores how received wisdom about gender even impacts on how scientists interpret Tyrannosaurus Rex fossils. 

Sit back and enjoy this extract from Klara's Bridging Binaries tour of the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Scientists but... beware the jaws of Big Mamma!

Part of the University of Cambridge Museums' Bridging Binaries LGBTQ+ tour programme.

Sedgwick

Beware the jaws of Big Mamma!

A penguin egg in the Polar Museum is more than it seems...

Join Julia Peck for a tale of sexual speculation in this Bridging Binaries tour extract. 

Part of the University of Cambridge Museums'  Bridging Binaries LGBTQ+ tour programme.

Polar

Sexual speculation over a speckled specimen

Ellen Purdy tells a story of monks, matrimony and martial arts, inspired by a Noh mask in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Part of the University of Cambridge Museums' Bridging Binaries LGBTQ+ tour programme.

Monks, matrimony and martial arts

The Greek hero Hercules was famous for his many labours, and his many lovers... 

Luis Jimenez ushers us into the presence of a legend in this extract from his Bridging Binaries tour of the Museum of Classical Archaeology.

Part of the University of Cambridge Museums' Bridging Binaries LGBTQ+ tour programme.

The many lovers of a legend

Glimpse the interior life of artist Gwen John in this extract from Oliver Warren's Bridging Binaries tour of the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Part of the University of Cambridge Museums' Bridging Binaries LGBTQ+ tour programme.

Fitz

The interior life of a quiet painter

Join the revels of the ancient god Dionysus...

Lucian Stephenson shares a story from the Museum of Classical Archaeology, part of the University of Cambridge Museums' LGBTQ+ tour programme.

Museums Remix 3 2021

Join the revelry

In the Whipple Museum of the History of Science is a very special microscope... Meg Roberts explores what Charles Darwin did and didn't see in this story from the University of Cambridge Museums' Bridging Binaries tour programme.

Whipple

What didn't Darwin see?

A barrel organ in the Polar Museum's collection opens up a world of polar pantomime fun...

Julia Peck tells an LGBTQ+ story from Polar Museum, part of the University of Cambridge Museums' Bridging Binaries tour programme.

Pantomimes, petticoats and polar expeditions

Meet Antinous, the boy who became a god...

Anthony Bridgen shares a story from his LGBTQ+ history tour of the Fitzwilliam Museum, part of the University of Cambridge Museums' Bridging Binaries tour programme.

How to ensure a memory never fades

Discover the life and loves of Alexander the Great...

Anthony Bridgen shares a story from his LGBTQ+ history tour of the Fitzwilliam Museum, part of the University of Cambridge Museums' Bridging Binaries tour programme.

Who loved Alexander the Great?

Surtsey Journal: Audio

Barra Journal: Audio

‘This Globe is Broken’. A poem about how the globe as an object is not neutral. A response to the colonial 1875 Jigsaw Globe on display in the Museum’s Globe Gallery. 

Creator: Annie Tomkins.

This audio was created as part of Museum Remix 2023, coinciding with the University of Cambridge Museums’ programme of Power and Memory.

This Globe is Broken

The Museum as an institution is not neutral. A response to the colonial 1875 Jigsaw Globe on display in the Museum’s Globe Gallery. 

Creators: Fu Ge Yang, Sally Yan and Annie Tomkins.

This audio was created as part of Museum Remix 2023, coinciding with the University of Cambridge Museums’ programme of Power and Memory.

Music from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

The Museum is Not Neutral

Credits:
Written by Annabel Worth, Kirsten Huffer and Emma Pratt
Read by Kirsten and Annabel
Audio editing and soundscape by Emma

This piece concerns Mary Anning's Icthyosaur in the Sedgwick museum.

Once upon a time, 200 million years ago, dolphin-like marine reptiles, or ichthyosaurs, like this one roamed the Jurassic Sea. About 200 years ago, Mary Anning, mother of paleontology, found this ichthyosaur fossil along the craggy cliffs of England's southern coast.

If fossils could talk, what would this ichthyosaur say? What could it tell us about the experiences of its collector, Mary Anning, who was widely excluded from scientific circles of her day? And what could it tell us about Adam Sedgwick, who purchased it—possibly with the money that he gained from the labour of enslaved people? What stories of power and memory, gender and colonialism, could this ichthyosaur bring to life?

Unearthing Anning and her Ichthyosaur

Credits:
Written by Annabel Worth and Kirsten Huffer
Read by Annabel
Audio editing by Emma Pratt

This piece concerns the Iguanodon fossil cast in the Sedgwick museum. 

"For us this was a really important story to tell, as it highlights how the university has benefited, and continues to benefit, from slavery and colonialism, in a way that is usually hidden. One can appreciate the object itself, marvel at its great size, thinking how amazing it is that something like this ever existed, and be excited about all it has taught us about dinosaur biomechanics and movement, but we believe it is necessary to recognise its history, as well as past wrongdoing by the university and others. Despite the obvious benefits of having such a wonderful cast in our possession, both in terms of academic study and inspiring and exciting the public, this piece’s origins are complex and dark. As you will hear, the dinosaur could be considered part of Leopold II’s attempt to encourage his European neighbours to overlook the suffering being inflicted on the people of the Congo at the end of the 19th century - something which deserves to be acknowledged."

A gift of guilt?

This audio was created as part of Museum Remix 2023, coinciding with the University of Cambridge Museums’ programme of Power and Memory. It was put together by Kiki Bordean, Heidi McEvoy-Swift and Katrina Dring with the help of the Museum Remix and wider UCM teams. 

The Museum of Classical Archaeology is filled with sculptural expressions of the human form, including many heads. In a small case near the entrance are four broken terracotta figurines from Naukratis, a Greek trading post in Egypt. These figurines have been suggested as having features which might indicate individuals of African heritage – features which are not often seen in other sculptures from the classical period. Who were they? The figurines were made from a mould so presumably lots of these figures were made. By whom? For what purpose? Sadly, we don’t know much more.

Rather than re-tell or verbally extend the information already given in the captions about these figurines, we decided to complement it with a (hopefully!) thought-provoking collection of sounds. In the soundscape, we wanted to explore the circumstances of these heads – what they symbolise(d), how they were made, used and broken, and what they might tell us about Greek life in Egypt. We invite the listener to reflect on the themes of identity, power, and expression which we ourselves were occupied by during the two-day programme.

Featuring the voices of Kiki Bordean, Heidi McEvoy-Swift, Katrina Dring, Ruchika Gurung and Barney Brown.

Heads

This audio was created as part of Museum Remix 2023, coinciding with the University of Cambridge Museums’ programme of Power and Memory. It was put together by Kiki Bordean, Heidi McEvoy-Swift and Katrina Dring with the help of the Museum Remix and wider UCM teams. 

The Museum of Classical Archaeology is filled with sculptural expressions of the human form, including many heads. In one corner of the gallery, nestled among a display of busts, are two heads with ragged, broken edges around the neck. These came from bronze sculptures of Roman emperors Augustus and Claudius; the sculptures having been decapitated as a symbol of resistance during local uprisings by the Kushite and Iceni, respectively. Nearby in the gallery is another instance of decapitation, this time carried out by the Roman Empire. The scene from Trajan’s column shows the severed heads of two Dacians being presented to Trajan on the battlefield; a symbol of Rome’s enduring power and expanding empire.

Rather than re-tell or verbally extend the information already given in the captions about these heads, we decided to complement it with a (hopefully!) thought-provoking collection of sounds. In the soundscape, we wanted to explore the circumstances of these heads – what they symbolise(d), how they came to be detached from their bodies, and how their stories both overlap and diverge. The wolf played an important role in Celtic, Dacian and Roman mythologies and, even today, is often seen as symbolic of wildness and freedom. We invite the listener to reflect on the themes of identity, power, and expression which we ourselves were occupied by during the two-day programme. 

Featuring the voices of Kiki Bordean, Heidi McEvoy-Swift, Katrina Dring, Ruchika Gurung and Barney Brown.

Heads Of...

Here how the first ever rock specimen collected from the summit of Mount Everest ended up at the Sedgwick Museum

Everest at 70 - A rock from the roof of the world

Hear about the geology of the summit of Everest

Everest at 70 - The geology of the summit of Everest

Sedgwick Museum Director Liz Hide explores how Darwin's specimens don't just tell us about the development of his geological theories, but also give us a glimpse into nineteenth-century resource extraction and global economic networks.

Darwin's Chalcopyrite

Lewis Harrower and Andrea Elder's soundscape explores the story behind Phyllis Wager's Typewriter in the Polar Museum's collection.

When Phyllis Wager travelled to East Greenland as part of a British expedition in 1935, it was so unusual for women to travel to the Polar regions that special permission was needed from the Foreign Office. What can her typewriter tell us about her work?

Lewis and Andrea write:
"We share an interest in old technologies and were excited to tell a different story of the Polar expedition showcasing the day to day as well as the hiking in freezing conditions. Our approach was to imagine the lives of these researchers behind the reports. The stories we tell through the soundscape were gathered from the obituary of Phyllis and other research. We hope to have encapsulated the whole experience in just a short time and allow the listener to imagine for themselves what it may have been like." 

Charlotte Connelly, Museum Curator at the Polar Museum responds:
"I really enjoyed listening to this and imagining Phyllis typing up her notes while she reflected on travelling through the Greenlandic landscape or socialising with her fellow expedition members. It felt like a brilliant whistle-stop tour of the expedition, thank you!"

This track is part of the Museum Remix: Unheard project.  Find out more at www.museums.cam.ac.uk/museumremix
You can find out more about Phyllis Wager's typewriter here: https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/magic/phyllis-wagers-typewriter

Phyllis Wager: A Typewriter's Tale

Giulia Gambino retells the story of the battle between the Lapiths and Centaurs, as depicted on the West Pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, through song.

The sculpture - of which a plaster cast is displayed in the Museum of Classical Archaeology - shows a battle between humans and centaurs: a wedding party gone disastrously wrong. A woman fights off a centaur - a creature that is half-man, half-horse - with a well-placed elbow. 

Giulia writes,
"My submission is a song inspired by the legend of the battle between Lapiths and Centaurs. I imagined the statue taking life and singing her story to the audience, explaining why she's reacting to the “abduction” of the mythological creature with all her might: it's a matter of principles and destiny, since -as we know- civility couldn't be beaten by irrationality, as Apollo’s presence confirms. But it’s also a love story: by surrendering to the Centaur, the protagonist would have lost life’s most deep purpose, Sappho’s “Theia Mania”!"

This track is part of the Museum Remix: Unheard project. Find out more at: www.museums.cam.ac.uk/museumremix
You can find out more about the sculpture at: https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/magic/woman-elbowing-centaur

ἄκλυτος (Unheard)

Theo Sayers imagines the story behind an archive photograph in the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences.

In 1900, in Barrington, near Cambridge, three men pose for a photograph alongside a partially-excavated fossil rhinocerus skill.
How can we imagine the interactions between these three men from very different social classes. Were they respectful of each other's knowledge? Or was it strongly hierarchical?

Theo writes,
"I was drawn to the object for its local origin and the opportunities the photograph presented for storytelling. Focusing on quarryman Arthur Hardman, I used some creative license to imagine aspects of his life and how he may have felt towards the other men in the photograph. I wanted to pay tribute to Arthur as I saw him as the most humble of the three men. I think museums should more often celebrate figures like Arthur, who are instrumental in finding these objects."

This track is part of the Museum Remix: Unheard project. Find out more at: www.museums.cam.ac.uk/museumremix

You can find out more about the archive photograph at: https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/magic/barrington-quarry-rhino

The Ballad Of Arthur Hardman

Maxine Fay's soundscape Afternoon Sounds responds to a child's plate in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. 

The small, rather damaged plate was excavated in the centre of Cambridge in the early 2000s. It features two alphabets, British Sign Language and English, and hints at the rich and complex history of Deaf culture not often explored in archaeology museums.

Maxine writes that she took her inspiration from "The idea that not only could deaf people not hear everyday sounds but once they were not allowed to communicate using signs.  I wanted a quiet piece to show how even the small sounds of an afternoon can be significant, when you can hear them.  I also wanted to try something related to ASMR - an interesting idea that I am uncertain how to achieve!"

This track is part of the Museum Remix: Unheard project. Find out more at: www.museums.cam.ac.uk/museumremix.

You can find out more about the British Sign Language plate at https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/magic/british-sign-language-alphabet-plate

Afternoon Sounds

Katy A. Whitaker's spoken word piece imagines pioneering archaeologist Dorothy Garrod (1892-1968) talking about her war work and remembering inter-war excavations. It was inspired by a prehistoric necklace excavated by Garrod from Mount Carmel in Israel in the 1930s, now in the collection of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Katy writes,
"I was thinking about how varied Dorothy Garrod's life was during the period 1914-1945, during which the necklaces were excavated, and what she might have been thinking about while engaged on war work in each World War. I wanted to tie together these amazing strands of her life, and thought that a common thread could be her relationship with the women she worked with, albeit in such contrasting circumstances. She was at her very best working with teams of women, whether on site or in uniform. I saw the necklaces as a visual metaphor for links in and across her life. Objects aren't only about the people who made and used them, but are presented in museums divorced from their finders and from those people's rich, complex lives. That's a shame, because (archaeology) museum collections are there by reason of their excavators, not because of the people who made and used the objects."

This track is part of the Museum Remix: Unheard project. Find out more at: www.museums.cam.ac.uk/museumremix

You can find out more about Dorothy Garrod and the necklace at: https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/magic/necklaces-mount-carmel

Dorothy Garrod Remembers

Laura Grace Simpkins explores the miniature world of foraminifera - tiny marine creatures which feature in the fossil record as early as 50 million years ago - inspired by Charles Elcock's microscope slide kit in the Whipple Museum of the History of Science.

As a professional "microscopist", Charles Elcock built his career on his ability to produce microscope slides. His microscopy kit and slides reveal his incredible skill. But Elcock and craftspeople like him don't often feature in the stories we tell about scientific discoveries. 

Laura writes,
"Why does my deep dive from Elcock’s slides to pink beaches make me so excited? Why is pink sand just cool? To me, it’s proof that nature is bright and fun. That nature is colourful, diverse, queer. That there isn’t a distinction between "art" and "science" in nature. That "nature" itself is a construct. Those are all human-centric ideas, borne out of the European Enlightenment. There is little to be gained from continuing those distinctions. Elcock’s scientifically-useful and aesthetically-  pleasing slides invite me into imagining new ways of performing science. I’d like to see a pink-sandy kind of science, one that is creative and queered. A science that has to respond to nature expressively, that has a dialogue with it, that works on a give-and-take relationship. A science that moves beyond mere order, control, and labelling, towards appreciation, connection, and imagination."

Foraminifera

John Hodgson's poem Transition is inspired by a prehistoric necklace excavated by pioneering archaeologist Dorothy Garrod (1892-1968) from Mount Carmel in Israel in the 1930s, and now in the collection of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Garrod became the first female professor in the history of the University of Cambridge.

John writes,
"Dorothy Garrod admits that the assembly of the necklace, originally at least, was a guess, there being no evidence for any thread to tie the assembly together. Equally there is no evidence beyond precedents that straight men make better professors of archaeology or knappers of flint or carvers of bone. The Natufian culture was a transition between nomadic and more settled existences. The era of gendered work privilege may be equally transitory in the historical record."

This track is part of the Museum Remix: Unheard project. Find out more at: www.museums.cam.ac.uk/museumremix

You can find out more about Dorothy Garrod and the necklace at: www.museums.cam.ac.uk/magic/necklaces-mount-carmel

Transition

Steven Goodwin's soundscape Windswept No. 3 is inspired by Phyllis Wager's typewriter in the collection of the Polar Museum.

When Phyllis Wager travelled to East Greenland as part of a British expedition in 1935, it was so unusual for women to travel to the Polar regions that special permission was needed from the Foreign Office. What can her typewriter tell us about her work?

Steven writes,
"This soundscape transitions from the literal to the abstract. Beginning with the Arctic blizzard, you can hear the typewriter being prepared for a session. Then, as the keys start hammering, the blizzard subsides and the key strokes become longer and longer to representing the slowing of time experience when writing. The typewrite sounds are stretched, and applied with effects such that they eventually sound like a blizzard, to reflect the authors experience - now of an internalised reality which has replaced the outside wind. Such is the intensity of the writing process that the listener hardly notices the outside blizzard has disappeared, and the key strokes become so long (to represent the 6-month long arctic days and nights) that they take the place of the outside wind.

It is appealing because it reflects the way we internalise our thought processes in isolation. Whether a literal lockdown isolation, or a virtual one as experienced when playing games, or reading books.

I approached it as an exercise in taking one sound from the object (the typewriter), and processing it until it sounded like the environment in which it was used (the Arctic.)

Getting objects understood and reflect in situ, especially through alternate mediums, I find to be quite different to a museum's printed label."

Charlotte Connelly, Museum Curator at the Polar Museum, responds:
"I got a lot from this interpretation of the typewriter and the writer’s experience. For all that the expedition took place in a relatively isolated part of Greenland, the expedition members were living in close quarters for much of the time. I imagine writing could have been a retreat from the day-to-day activities of living in a remote part of Greenland, and really enjoyed the meditative feeling I got from this piece."

This track is part of the Museum Remix: Unheard project. Find out more at www.museums.cam.ac.uk/museumremix.

You can find out more about Phyllis Wager's typewriter at: www.museums.cam.ac.uk/magic/phyllis-wagers-typewriter

Windswept No. 3

“When as Queen Anne of great renown Great Britain’s sceptre swayed, Besides the Church she dearly loved a dirty chambermaid..."

Jasmine Brady shares the gossip from Queen Anne's court, inspired by the Fitzwilliam Museum's Queen Anne plate.

This recording is part of the University of Cambridge Museums' Museum Remix project, bringing you stories from the Bridging Binaries LGBTQ+ tours.

Gossip from Queen Anne's court

Talking about collections, objects and a touch of cutting-edge research. Whoosh.

University of Cambridge Museums

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