Specimen preservation means researchers don't need to reinvent the wheel each time they ask a new question, making it critical for the advancement of science. But many specimens are discarded or lost.
This wooden dish from Broome, pre-1892, was made by Yawuru people, collected by police and later presented by the Commissioner of Police, Colonel Phillips, to the WA Museum.
Courtesy of the WA museum
A spear-thrower, a shell, a bowl, a vase, a bucket. Five very different items tell us much about the history of collecting, the role of Indigenous experts and the shadow of colonial violence.
The Gallery of Ecological Art (formerly China gallery) at the British Museum of Decolonised Nature.
Image courtesy John Zhang and Studio JZ
Paleontologists have discovered fossil remains belonging to an enormous 'toothed' bird that lived for a period of about 60 million years after dinosaurs.
Family Camping at Phillip Island, Victoria, 1951. Photographer: Leslie E. Chambers.
Unsplash/Museum Victoria
Too often in conversations about cultural centres, the incredible resources already available are neglected.The Berndt Museum, in Perth, is a collection of national and international significance.
This Jonkeria, an extinct animal from the Karoo that’s much older than the dinosaurs, was among the features of the old exhibition.
Author supplied
Cultural institutions are puzzling out to to make their buildings exciting and safe at the same time.
Specimens like these at Dublin’s Natural History Museum contain valuable information about the evolution of pathogens and host organisms.
Kieran Guckian/Flickr
The COVID-19 pandemic has closed museums and cultural sites worldwide. Meanwhile, curators are already working hard to preserve the current moment so that future generations may understand it.
Surface detail of the Tomanowos meteorite, showing cavities produced by dissolution of iron.
Eden, Janine and Jim/Wikipedia
Tomanowos, aka the Willamette Meteorite, may be the world's most interesting rock. Its story includes catastrophic ice age floods, theft of Native American cultural heritage and plenty of human folly.
Galleries and musuems are rapidly moving online in response to social distancing measures, but the digital divide means regional and remote organisations could be left behind.
COVID-19 is dragging some arts institutions into the 21st century. Others are already well down this path. What we win and lose when culture goes online and a bunch of links you can enjoy today.
One of Britain’s great cultural institutions: the British Museum in London.
Claudio Divizia via Shutterstock
Why shouting diversity just doesn't cut it if the system is designed to keep people out.
Julie Adams (British Museum), Jody Toroa and Kay Robin (left to right) discussing a cloak from the British Museum, collected by Lieutenant James Cook in 1769.
Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll