We may take our colour vision for granted but, for most of us, it is a vital aspect of our daily lives. We are effusive about colour in art, nature, fashion, sunsets – yet without the eyes that humans have, does colour really exist? Do animals see the world as we do? How did vision evolve?
These questions are posed in colourful vinyl print on the floor as visitors enter Colour and Vision, the Natural History Museum’s (NHM) most recent temporary exhibition.
Addressing broad issues concerning the evolution of functional anatomy for a non-specialist audience is intimidating. Doing so in an accessible and entertaining manner, while maintaining scientific integrity, is far from easy. Yet this most illuminating of exhibitions does just that.
On entering the show, visitors find themselves in a bright white corridor illuminated on one side by a procession of tall transparent triangular prisms, each internally lit by neon lights in rainbow hues. It is a conceptual installation, titled Our Spectral Vision, by artist Liz West. From this minimalist space, with just a brief text-only introductory panel, visitors go straight into a dark room with black walls, back in time to 565 million years ago.
We are introduced to a monochrome Precambrian world through wonderful fossils of Ediacaran fauna – found at Mistaken Point, the most exposed Atlantic corner of Newfoundland – that represent the dawn of multicellular life.
But these basic life forms had no vision, so the exhibition moves us forward to the Cambrian explosion, a dramatic acceleration in the diversity and complexity of life, which brought about the evolution of eyesight. Here, we are treated to a series of magnificent rare fossils from the Burgess Shale in Canada and exceptionally preserved three-dimensional trilobites (marine arthropods thatlook like ancient woodlice) in their spiny splendour, which peer out of the rock with geometric, compound eyes.
Evolutionary advances
At this point in the narrative, the earliest bloomings of a polychromatic natural world arrive with the development of vision. Intertwined in an evolutionary arms race to eat or be eaten, to be seen or not seen, the specimens used throughout the exhibition demonstrate evolution. There are fossils that show the beginnings of predation, such as molluscs developing eyes to respond and catch their prey. The exhibition also takes in how velvet worms developed their own form of eyesight, divergent from that of arthropods with whom they shared ancestry.
Tackling dense subjects requires detailed and involved interpretation, but for those who may find that intimidating or difficult, the exhibition is so visually engaging, as well as having interactive, multisensory elements that it maintains a good level of interest.
The transition from prehistoric fossil evidence to contemporary specimens and zoological science is punctuated by a wall of cross-sectioned eyes in glass jars. This is less gory than it sounds; it is both exciting and engaging, allowing visitors to interact with specimens that have only been used by researchers before now. My favourite was the huge eye of a Greenland shark – a predator found in Arctic waters that reaches the size of a great white shark and frequently hassmall parasitic crustaceans, calledcopepods, attached to its eye. Recent research has revealed that these sharks may live up to 500 years, the longest lifespan of any vertebrate.
Origin of vision
The next space deals with the origin of vision in different phyla (taxonomic classes) of animals. To demonstrate this, there is a video display and plenty of specimens with clear diagrams showing how their different eyes function. Some visitors will linger over these while others might find it too technical and move on.
Around the corner is a tower of natural history specimens celebrating the colour of the natural world. Every specimen relates to one aspect of the various ways in which organisms create colour. Playfully displayed – a glorious peacock perches on a seemingly precarious stack of cases about four metres high and the neck and head of a giraffe peer over a large blue starfish – they should excite visitors of every age and learning ability. Again, the museum team has not shied away from detailed discussion of how the different pigments and colours work structurally.
The final section of the main exhibition uses even more specimens to explore how animals and plants use colour, from photosynthesis to using them to threaten opponents in combative display. Throughout the exhibition it is gratifying to see such a wide range of specimens displayed: study skins (specimens prepared to a basic level for the study of physical features, not posed in lifelike positions such as taxidermy mounts), fossils, pinned insects, taxidermy, conchology, wet-collections – all are given an appropriate place and context.
The design and production is generally good. Even the audiovisual and interactive screens, so often superfluous or poorly thought through in museums, serve their function well. The lighting is excellent throughout, sensitive to the delicate objects yet highlighting their best features. For instance, some fossils are hard to light effectively due to their low relief, but here even the faintest impressions of Precambrian life are easy to see.
However, I did notice that by the third day of opening, some of the print material was showing signs of wear, reflecting poor quality materials. A few labels were awry because their adhesive was failing and there were some bubbles under vinyl sheets. All of these were not huge problems and perhaps noted only by a critical eye. Although far from disastrous, such things are distracting and one expects more from a national museum of the NHM’s standing.
Inspiring finale
I found the introductory art installation to be rather weak and its invitation to the audience to interact with and reflect on their own psychological colour associations added nothing to, and perhaps even detracted from, an otherwise excellent exhibition.
Conversely, the final room presents a short inspiring film in which two NHM scientists and two artists reflect on colour in the natural world and their own conceptual and intellectual engagement with it. Beautifully edited and nicely projected, it creates a satisfyingly contemplative space at the close of an exhibition full of deeply involving scientific detail and incredible natural wonders.
Matt Williams is the collections manager at Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution
Focus on: Social media
All existing life can be mapped onto the tree of life’s beautifully complex 38 branches. Groups of animals are categorised by shared genes and similar characteristics, and allocated a space on an existing branch or, occasionally, a new branch. Of these branches, only six contain animals with image-forming eyes. This may seem like a low number, but 96% of all species are found within these branches, instantly telling us something of the evolutionary success of the image-forming eye.
The Wall of Eyes that we have created for the Natural History Museum’s Colour and Vision exhibition sets out to celebrate the diversity of vision in one of the most familiar branches – the vertebrates, of which humans are a part. In a 3 m sq installation, 112 anatomical eye specimens are displayed in jewellery box-like display cases next to colourful graphics of living vertebrate animal eyes and three digital screens celebrating the diversity of human eyes.
Testing the use of social media in an exhibition for the fi rst time, the Wall of Eyes’ third screen features images of visitors’ eyes that have been uploaded to Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #MyEye. Through external marketing promotion and a call-to-action in the gallery, visitors are encouraged to participate before, during and after their visit.
So far, hundreds of eyes have been uploaded to the screen through the hashtag, proving that social media can be a successful way of engaging with visitors in the gallery and beyond.
Fiona Cole-Hamilton is the interpretation developer at the Natural History Museum, London
Main funder LG OLED TV
Exhibition design Nissen Richards
Installation In house
Conservation In house
Admission Free for MA members, adult £12, child £6, family £30
Exhibition ends 6 November
These questions are posed in colourful vinyl print on the floor as visitors enter Colour and Vision, the Natural History Museum’s (NHM) most recent temporary exhibition.
Addressing broad issues concerning the evolution of functional anatomy for a non-specialist audience is intimidating. Doing so in an accessible and entertaining manner, while maintaining scientific integrity, is far from easy. Yet this most illuminating of exhibitions does just that.
On entering the show, visitors find themselves in a bright white corridor illuminated on one side by a procession of tall transparent triangular prisms, each internally lit by neon lights in rainbow hues. It is a conceptual installation, titled Our Spectral Vision, by artist Liz West. From this minimalist space, with just a brief text-only introductory panel, visitors go straight into a dark room with black walls, back in time to 565 million years ago.
We are introduced to a monochrome Precambrian world through wonderful fossils of Ediacaran fauna – found at Mistaken Point, the most exposed Atlantic corner of Newfoundland – that represent the dawn of multicellular life.
But these basic life forms had no vision, so the exhibition moves us forward to the Cambrian explosion, a dramatic acceleration in the diversity and complexity of life, which brought about the evolution of eyesight. Here, we are treated to a series of magnificent rare fossils from the Burgess Shale in Canada and exceptionally preserved three-dimensional trilobites (marine arthropods thatlook like ancient woodlice) in their spiny splendour, which peer out of the rock with geometric, compound eyes.
Evolutionary advances
At this point in the narrative, the earliest bloomings of a polychromatic natural world arrive with the development of vision. Intertwined in an evolutionary arms race to eat or be eaten, to be seen or not seen, the specimens used throughout the exhibition demonstrate evolution. There are fossils that show the beginnings of predation, such as molluscs developing eyes to respond and catch their prey. The exhibition also takes in how velvet worms developed their own form of eyesight, divergent from that of arthropods with whom they shared ancestry.
Tackling dense subjects requires detailed and involved interpretation, but for those who may find that intimidating or difficult, the exhibition is so visually engaging, as well as having interactive, multisensory elements that it maintains a good level of interest.
The transition from prehistoric fossil evidence to contemporary specimens and zoological science is punctuated by a wall of cross-sectioned eyes in glass jars. This is less gory than it sounds; it is both exciting and engaging, allowing visitors to interact with specimens that have only been used by researchers before now. My favourite was the huge eye of a Greenland shark – a predator found in Arctic waters that reaches the size of a great white shark and frequently hassmall parasitic crustaceans, calledcopepods, attached to its eye. Recent research has revealed that these sharks may live up to 500 years, the longest lifespan of any vertebrate.
Origin of vision
The next space deals with the origin of vision in different phyla (taxonomic classes) of animals. To demonstrate this, there is a video display and plenty of specimens with clear diagrams showing how their different eyes function. Some visitors will linger over these while others might find it too technical and move on.
Around the corner is a tower of natural history specimens celebrating the colour of the natural world. Every specimen relates to one aspect of the various ways in which organisms create colour. Playfully displayed – a glorious peacock perches on a seemingly precarious stack of cases about four metres high and the neck and head of a giraffe peer over a large blue starfish – they should excite visitors of every age and learning ability. Again, the museum team has not shied away from detailed discussion of how the different pigments and colours work structurally.
The final section of the main exhibition uses even more specimens to explore how animals and plants use colour, from photosynthesis to using them to threaten opponents in combative display. Throughout the exhibition it is gratifying to see such a wide range of specimens displayed: study skins (specimens prepared to a basic level for the study of physical features, not posed in lifelike positions such as taxidermy mounts), fossils, pinned insects, taxidermy, conchology, wet-collections – all are given an appropriate place and context.
The design and production is generally good. Even the audiovisual and interactive screens, so often superfluous or poorly thought through in museums, serve their function well. The lighting is excellent throughout, sensitive to the delicate objects yet highlighting their best features. For instance, some fossils are hard to light effectively due to their low relief, but here even the faintest impressions of Precambrian life are easy to see.
However, I did notice that by the third day of opening, some of the print material was showing signs of wear, reflecting poor quality materials. A few labels were awry because their adhesive was failing and there were some bubbles under vinyl sheets. All of these were not huge problems and perhaps noted only by a critical eye. Although far from disastrous, such things are distracting and one expects more from a national museum of the NHM’s standing.
Inspiring finale
I found the introductory art installation to be rather weak and its invitation to the audience to interact with and reflect on their own psychological colour associations added nothing to, and perhaps even detracted from, an otherwise excellent exhibition.
Conversely, the final room presents a short inspiring film in which two NHM scientists and two artists reflect on colour in the natural world and their own conceptual and intellectual engagement with it. Beautifully edited and nicely projected, it creates a satisfyingly contemplative space at the close of an exhibition full of deeply involving scientific detail and incredible natural wonders.
Matt Williams is the collections manager at Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution
Focus on: Social media
All existing life can be mapped onto the tree of life’s beautifully complex 38 branches. Groups of animals are categorised by shared genes and similar characteristics, and allocated a space on an existing branch or, occasionally, a new branch. Of these branches, only six contain animals with image-forming eyes. This may seem like a low number, but 96% of all species are found within these branches, instantly telling us something of the evolutionary success of the image-forming eye.
The Wall of Eyes that we have created for the Natural History Museum’s Colour and Vision exhibition sets out to celebrate the diversity of vision in one of the most familiar branches – the vertebrates, of which humans are a part. In a 3 m sq installation, 112 anatomical eye specimens are displayed in jewellery box-like display cases next to colourful graphics of living vertebrate animal eyes and three digital screens celebrating the diversity of human eyes.
Testing the use of social media in an exhibition for the fi rst time, the Wall of Eyes’ third screen features images of visitors’ eyes that have been uploaded to Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #MyEye. Through external marketing promotion and a call-to-action in the gallery, visitors are encouraged to participate before, during and after their visit.
So far, hundreds of eyes have been uploaded to the screen through the hashtag, proving that social media can be a successful way of engaging with visitors in the gallery and beyond.
Fiona Cole-Hamilton is the interpretation developer at the Natural History Museum, London
Project data
Cost UndisclosedMain funder LG OLED TV
Exhibition design Nissen Richards
Installation In house
Conservation In house
Admission Free for MA members, adult £12, child £6, family £30
Exhibition ends 6 November