This week and next at Observatory! Hope to see you there.
Blaschka: Glass creatures of the Ocean – An Illustrated History of The Natural History Museum (NHM), London Collection
Illustrated lecture with Miranda Lowe, The Natural History Museum (NHM), London Curator
Date: Thursday, May 10
Time: 8:00
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Although more famously know for the making the glass flowers
exhibited at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, the father and son
partnership of Leopold (1822-1895) and Rudolf (1857-1939) Blaschka also
made numerous marine invertebrate glass models. Some of the first
models they made were sea anemones in the early 1860’s. The Natural
History Museum (NHM), London purchased their first set around 1865 and
holds over 185 Blaschka glass models consisting of anemones, sea slugs,
jellyfish, octopus, squid, protozoans and corals representing their
entire model making career. The models were made in a variety ways with
many formed over wire skeletons (known as armatures) with the glass
fused together or glued. Profiled in various scientific sales
catalogues such as Henry A. Ward’s they were to sold museums,
universities and private collectors by the Blaschkas themselves and
various agents who worked on their behalf worldwide. In the past these
models were of scientific importance in teaching but as trends change
their significance as works of art are also being highlighted. Each
glass model is a unique blend of art, science and craftsmanship looking
more life-like than real specimens whose natural colours may fade when
stored in jars of preservation fluid over time. This highly illustrated
lecture will give a fascinating insight to this collection housed at
one of the major natural history museums in the world.
Miranda Lowe
is the Collections Manager of the Marine Invertebrates Division,
Zoology Department, The Natural History Museum (NHM), London. Within
Zoology Miranda specifically manages the Crustacea collections as well
as the team of curators responsible for the Invertebrate
collections. Darwin barnacles and the Blaschka marine invertebrate
glass models are amongst some of the historical collections that are
her interests and under her care. In 2006, she was part of the
organising committee and invited speaker at the 1st international
Blaschka congress held in Dublin. Miranda collaborated with the
National Glass Centre, Sunderland, UK in 2008 to exhibit some of the
Museum’s Blaschka collection alongside contemporary Blaschka inspired
art. She also has an interest in photography, natural history - past
and present serving on a number of committees including the Society for
the History of Natural History (SHNH) and the Natural Sciences
Association (NatSCA).
Image: © The Natural History Museum, London 2012. All Rights Reserved.
A Most Unexpected History of Blood Transfusion (1660 - 1820s)
Illustrated lecture with Paul Craddock
Date: Monday, May 14
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Those living in Britain (who owned a television set) about ten years
ago might remember Sean Bean before he became a famous movie star.
Apart from his appearance in Sharpe, he starred in a television
advertisement for the National Blood Foundation, prompting people in
his thick Yorkshire accent to 'do something amazing today'; 'save a
life' by giving blood. The foundation's message is still the same,
though Sean Bean has moved onto other projects such as Lord of the Rings.
In any case, this illustrated lecture is about just that: the
transfusion of blood and its many meanings. But it focuses on a much
earlier (and stranger) period of transfusion history when saving a life
was only one reason to transfuse blood - from the sixteenth century to
the nineteenth.
The association between blood and life is a very easy one to make
and seems to span all cultures and time periods, as does the very idea
of swapping blood from one person to another. But what it means
to swap one being's blood with another's - and why this might be
attempted - has radically changed. It is only very recently, (around
the turn of the twentieth century), that blood was transfused in order
to purposefully replace lost blood. For the majority of this history,
this was most certainly not the case. In the seventeenth century,
transfusions of lamb's blood were made to calm mad patients and, in the
nineteenth century, blood was transfused in order to restore a portion
of an invisible living principle living inside of it. This lecture
explores from where these ideas came and the ways in which bits of them
might linger in our own ideas of transfusion.
On one last note: Paul Craddock commissioned a medical instrument
maker to produce some early nineteenth century transfusion equipment.
He hopes to demonstrate them at work if he can get them past customs!
Paul Craddock is currently writing on pre-20th century transplant surgery and transfusion at the London Consortium
working under Prof. Steven Connor (University of London) and Prof.
Holly Tucker (Vanderbilt University, Nashville). After a brief time
studying music and performing arts, living in rural China, and working
for the National Health Service, Paul made the switch to cultural and
medical history. He has never had a transplant and never received a
transfusion - his interest in these procedures come from thinking about
generally how we relate to the material world by making bodily
transactions. He has lectured around the UK and Europe, and last year
he spoke at the Observatory Gallery on skin grafting. Currently based in London, Paul is the Director of London Consortium
Television, the audio-visual arm of the London Consortium
(www.londonconsortium.tv). He is also the Guests' Secretary for the
University of London's Extra Mural Literature Association. In another
professional life, he produces films for medical establishments and
museum exhibitions.
Image: An
early blood transfusion from lamb to man, ca 1705. From "Tryals
Proposed by Mr. Boyle to Dr. Lower, to be Made by Him, for the
Improvement of Transfusing Blood out of One Live Animal into Another,"
Mr. Boyle
The Hidden River Expedition: A Re-Exploration of the Post-industrial Wilderness along Philadelphia's Rivers
An Illustrated Lecture and Film Screening with Allen Crawford (aka Lord Whimsy)
Date: Friday, May 18
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
In August of 2011, Allen Crawford (aka Lord Whimsy) left his house
to embark on a three-day, forty-mile solo kayak trek from Mount Holly,
NJ to Bartram's Garden, in West Philadelphia. This May 18th, Crawford
will present a video using footage shot from his kayak during this
trek. He will also give a slideshow presentation, highlighting the
strange history along these rivers he traversed: fugitive slave
enclaves, floating churches, Civil-War era submarines, and derelict
aircraft carriers all await you. This expedition was a re-exploration
of Philadelphia's landscape, and an investigation of how its built and
grown environments have affected each other over time. This landscape
is not pristine, but it is wild--and perhaps most important, it's new.
The "local frontier" exists!
Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy
(a.k.a. Victor Allen Crawford III), After twenty long years, has at
last achieved his dream: unemployability. He is an artist, designer,
author, re-explorer, failed dandy, tin grandee, gentleman trespasser, bushwhacking aesthete, parenthetical naturalist, pseudo-intellectual, and a middle-aged dilettante. Having taken a solemn vow to do as little in life as possible,
Whimsy was dismayed one morning to discover that he had accidentally
wrote, designed, and illustrated The Affected Provincial’s Companion, Volume One
(Bloomsbury 2006), which has been optioned for film by Johnny Depp’s
production company, Infinitum Nihil. His face and his words have graced
the hallowed pages of The New York Times, Interview, Frieze, Vice, Tin House, and Art in America. He and his wife are proprietors of the design and illustration studio Plankton Art Co. Their most notable project to date is the collection of 400 species identification illustrations that are on permanent display at the American Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Ocean Life. A devoted enthusiast, lower-case adventurer, and explorer of what he
calls “the local frontier,” Whimsy spends most of his time among the
nooks and margins of the forgotten, the curious, and the speculative
that is found beneath, around, and between the everyday. He smells like
gusto.
More on all events can be found
here.
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