We are at a crucial historical moment, in which the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List has announced a catastrophic decline in global biodiversity. Yet nature is, necessarily, interpreted in museums, through taxidermy dioramas and skeletal mounts; virtual tours and digital databases; image, text and film. The Unnatural History Museum brings together museum professionals and academics across disciplines to platform vital conversations about the museum mediation of the natural world during the sixth mass extinction.
Each session will be hosted on Zoom (link at top of Eventbrite page) to allow for international participation, and will take the format of short presentations focussed around a specific theme, followed by a synthesised Q&A and roundtable discussion.
The theme of this fourth session will be Cryptids, featuring presentations from and discussion with:
Jordan Kistler, University of Strathclyde
Paolo Viscardi, National Museum of Ireland – Natural History
Darren Naish, Tetrapod Zoology
This event series is organised by Dr Verity Burke as John Pollard Newman Fellow of Climate Change and the Arts at University College Dublin.
Image credit: : ‘WARPPEd Exhibition’. Paolo Viscardi, National Museum of Ireland: Natural History.