Notice Nature Feel Joy
Derby Museum and Art Gallery
Curated and co-produced by volunteers and visitors, this exciting display takes people on an adventure through the natural world, says Dave Freak
With the aim to “excite and inspire” visitors, Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s new display, Notice Nature Feel Joy (NNFJ), opened in March. This display of Derby’s natural history collection is pitched as “flexible, open, playful, experimental and emotive”.
The previous exhibition in the same space was titled The Visual Poetry of 1001 Objects To Inspire (1001 Objects) and won the prize for best exhibition in the Derbyshire Heritage Awards in 2012 by presenting a varied display on the theme of material.
It highlighted the diversity of the museum’s holdings, with glass shelves displaying Roman ceramics alongside items including an African spear, and the remains of a bronze age log boat (now relocated to the neighbouring Archaeological Gallery), many of which were rescued from the darker reaches of the museum’s stores.
Object-rich, and also pitched as experimental, 1001 Objects appears to have been a precursor to NNFJ.
Set in a single rectangular “through room”, NNFJ’s items are grouped under broad headings: fossils, insects, mammals, geology, sea creatures, birds, and so forth. Within each section, display methods vary. Trilobites, vertebrates, plants, gastropods and other relatively small fossils, for example, are shown in wall-mounted boxes at various heights.
An ichthyosaur rests just off the floor with a dolphin skull almost at ground level in the same case, while the Allenton hippo takes pride of place opposite. Discovered in Allenton in 1895, the incomplete 12,000-year-old skeleton was a focal point of the previous nature gallery and is one of a small number of items to remain on display.
The strength of Derby’s taxidermy collection is noticeable as soon as you enter the gallery. One case shows how approaches to natural history and taxidermy have changed over time. It is colourful and cramped, with the stuffy wall-mounted box crammed with more than 30 posed birds, piled high on fake branches and stones.
The tiny handwritten labels peeling away from twigs and feet, give the display a fascinating, if claustrophobic, charm.
Derby’s contemporary response to this case offers a dramatic contrast: entitled The Forest Of Birds, a diverse flock of birds rest in clear square boxes at different levels.
Familiar British residents such as the tawny owl, blue tit and raven perch alongside more exotic examples, including a gleaming Himalayan monal pheasant, macaw and resplendent quetzal. Allowing for 360-degree viewing, this display is spacious, sculptural, well lit and nicely designed.
Encouraging engagement
Further historic artefacts can be found in a seated area where, among the many reference
books and backlit magic lantern slides, stand ageing animal specimens – a gecko, eggs, an octopus – in spirit, rendered pale and colourless by the process of preservation.
Opportunities to get involved abound.
Tables displaying shells have wooden legs that echo the whorls and swirls of the shells themselves, and include pullout surfaces that suggest to visitors they should “pick up a pencil and draw away”.
Images of ferocious animal teeth adorn Perspex sheets that act as masks for humorous selfies (which can be quickly displayed on digital e-paper signage and via Twitter), and a splendid stuffed fox can be gently stroked.
In addition, several shallow shelves display drawings of gallery highlights by younger visitors, while a collection of postcards present bold calls to action: keep learning; give; connect; take notice; be active.
Adapted from the New Economics Foundation’s Five Ways to Wellbeing cards, they suggest simple actions that require us to engage with the natural world, from feeding birds and kicking autumn leaves, to recording sounds and considering ethical food choices.
Finally, several artist interventions – such as Richard Birkin’s birdsong-inspired
soundscape, Aves, and ethical taxidermist Jazmine Miles-Long’s delicate A Study of Two Song Thrushes, Understanding Life Through Death – await discovery, nested unobtrusively in the space.
Human-centred design
The varied heights of specimens appear problematic when walking into NNFJ for the first time – floor-level items are easily missed while higher exhibits, such as the red squirrel and African linsang, or great bustard and sea hawk, are difficult to see.
There’s also a notable absence of captions or labels, forcing visitors to reach for the books that accompany each section. Even several months after opening, the gallery has reported no significant negative comments relating to either issue – visitors simply step back or kneel down for a better view, or browse the neatly designed and informative publications on each section.
Featuring passionate personal responses to the subject, timelines, information about items and credits, these useful booklets are also available to buy from the museum shop at £4 each. For the fleeting visitor, the lack of traditional interpretation may seem unusual, but the museum’s solution appears to work.
Fuelled by the principles of human-centred design, NNFJ represents a new way of working for Derby Museums that incorporates deep levels of consultation and collaboration.
The museum staff analysed visitor interactions in the old nature gallery before starting a consultation process that featured more than 30 regular volunteers as well as hundreds of visitors, work experience placements and university students studying subjects from geology, forensic biology and zoology to product design and conservation.
The institution lacked staff with natural history expertise, so the museum held an “experts day”, netting nearly 30 natural science specialists who have stayed with the project and assisted with the curating process. The engagement of this sizeable army of volunteers extended to the construction of the birch ply and acrylic fixtures and fittings.
With the exception of the hippo case, all the vitrines were built at Derby’s Silk Mill Museum by contributors to its citizen curator project, Re:Make. And the collaboration and consultation process has not ended with the gallery’s opening – participants continue to provide input, resulting in additions, changes, trails and talks. This level of involvement is expected to continue throughout the lifespan of the exhibition.
Beginning with a blank slate, Derby Museum’s faith in the process of collaboration has resulted in a playful, imaginative, engaging and distinctive exhibition, with an influence that reaches far beyond the gallery walls.
As visitors respond to the collection emotionally and on scientific and historic levels, and previously observed passive behaviour patterns change, it is clear that the central theme of “noticing nature” has been well executed.
Dave Freak is a writer, editor, arts consultant and programmer based in the West Midlands
To develop the nature gallery we worked with hundreds of volunteers, visitors, supporters and partners to co-produce the displays.
The new gallery, Notice Nature Feel Joy, profiles 1,389 specimens from our natural history collection. Our approach to the project was open, playful, experimental and emotive, exploring the themes and stories suggested by visitors. We had a strong desire to do this with people and not simply decide the topics ourselves.
Our aim is for the gallery to be a stimulus, to excite and inspire visitors to take notice of our collection and the natural world. We hope they will leave the space full of inspiration and with a desire to appreciate and respond to the natural world around them.
Throughout the development and installation process we experimented with possibilities for the gallery, inviting people to drop in to test and play with prototypes to help shape the design and interpretation.
People told us that this open approach gave them an understanding of what went on behind the scenes. They felt the momentum of the project building and loved seeing the display develop.
They felt involved and included. Working in this way followed the success of our Re:Make project at Derby Silk Mill, where visitors and volunteers were encouraged to become curators, designers and makers.
This experience gave us increased confidence in co-producing and enabled us to allocate external design budget to materials and five creative commissions.
Utilising our Silk Mill Museum workshop and Super Nature volunteers we designed and developed simple, yet beautiful low- cost fixtures that suited the aesthetic of the room and the collection.
All of the fixtures were made in-house, with the exception of the large case for the hippopotamus skeleton (pictured below). The entire nature gallery project was a true adventure.
Andrea Hadley-Johnson is the co-production and engagement manager at Derby Museums
Project data
Cost £80,000
Main funders DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund
Curators Rachel Atherton and Louise Dunning
Technician Richard Tailby Lifelong learning programmer Chris Keady
Workshop facilitator Steve Smith
With the aim to “excite and inspire” visitors, Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s new display, Notice Nature Feel Joy (NNFJ), opened in March. This display of Derby’s natural history collection is pitched as “flexible, open, playful, experimental and emotive”.
The previous exhibition in the same space was titled The Visual Poetry of 1001 Objects To Inspire (1001 Objects) and won the prize for best exhibition in the Derbyshire Heritage Awards in 2012 by presenting a varied display on the theme of material.
It highlighted the diversity of the museum’s holdings, with glass shelves displaying Roman ceramics alongside items including an African spear, and the remains of a bronze age log boat (now relocated to the neighbouring Archaeological Gallery), many of which were rescued from the darker reaches of the museum’s stores.
Object-rich, and also pitched as experimental, 1001 Objects appears to have been a precursor to NNFJ.
Set in a single rectangular “through room”, NNFJ’s items are grouped under broad headings: fossils, insects, mammals, geology, sea creatures, birds, and so forth. Within each section, display methods vary. Trilobites, vertebrates, plants, gastropods and other relatively small fossils, for example, are shown in wall-mounted boxes at various heights.
An ichthyosaur rests just off the floor with a dolphin skull almost at ground level in the same case, while the Allenton hippo takes pride of place opposite. Discovered in Allenton in 1895, the incomplete 12,000-year-old skeleton was a focal point of the previous nature gallery and is one of a small number of items to remain on display.
The strength of Derby’s taxidermy collection is noticeable as soon as you enter the gallery. One case shows how approaches to natural history and taxidermy have changed over time. It is colourful and cramped, with the stuffy wall-mounted box crammed with more than 30 posed birds, piled high on fake branches and stones.
The tiny handwritten labels peeling away from twigs and feet, give the display a fascinating, if claustrophobic, charm.
Derby’s contemporary response to this case offers a dramatic contrast: entitled The Forest Of Birds, a diverse flock of birds rest in clear square boxes at different levels.
Familiar British residents such as the tawny owl, blue tit and raven perch alongside more exotic examples, including a gleaming Himalayan monal pheasant, macaw and resplendent quetzal. Allowing for 360-degree viewing, this display is spacious, sculptural, well lit and nicely designed.
Encouraging engagement
Further historic artefacts can be found in a seated area where, among the many reference
books and backlit magic lantern slides, stand ageing animal specimens – a gecko, eggs, an octopus – in spirit, rendered pale and colourless by the process of preservation.
Opportunities to get involved abound.
Tables displaying shells have wooden legs that echo the whorls and swirls of the shells themselves, and include pullout surfaces that suggest to visitors they should “pick up a pencil and draw away”.
Images of ferocious animal teeth adorn Perspex sheets that act as masks for humorous selfies (which can be quickly displayed on digital e-paper signage and via Twitter), and a splendid stuffed fox can be gently stroked.
In addition, several shallow shelves display drawings of gallery highlights by younger visitors, while a collection of postcards present bold calls to action: keep learning; give; connect; take notice; be active.
Adapted from the New Economics Foundation’s Five Ways to Wellbeing cards, they suggest simple actions that require us to engage with the natural world, from feeding birds and kicking autumn leaves, to recording sounds and considering ethical food choices.
Finally, several artist interventions – such as Richard Birkin’s birdsong-inspired
soundscape, Aves, and ethical taxidermist Jazmine Miles-Long’s delicate A Study of Two Song Thrushes, Understanding Life Through Death – await discovery, nested unobtrusively in the space.
Human-centred design
The varied heights of specimens appear problematic when walking into NNFJ for the first time – floor-level items are easily missed while higher exhibits, such as the red squirrel and African linsang, or great bustard and sea hawk, are difficult to see.
There’s also a notable absence of captions or labels, forcing visitors to reach for the books that accompany each section. Even several months after opening, the gallery has reported no significant negative comments relating to either issue – visitors simply step back or kneel down for a better view, or browse the neatly designed and informative publications on each section.
Featuring passionate personal responses to the subject, timelines, information about items and credits, these useful booklets are also available to buy from the museum shop at £4 each. For the fleeting visitor, the lack of traditional interpretation may seem unusual, but the museum’s solution appears to work.
Fuelled by the principles of human-centred design, NNFJ represents a new way of working for Derby Museums that incorporates deep levels of consultation and collaboration.
The museum staff analysed visitor interactions in the old nature gallery before starting a consultation process that featured more than 30 regular volunteers as well as hundreds of visitors, work experience placements and university students studying subjects from geology, forensic biology and zoology to product design and conservation.
The institution lacked staff with natural history expertise, so the museum held an “experts day”, netting nearly 30 natural science specialists who have stayed with the project and assisted with the curating process. The engagement of this sizeable army of volunteers extended to the construction of the birch ply and acrylic fixtures and fittings.
With the exception of the hippo case, all the vitrines were built at Derby’s Silk Mill Museum by contributors to its citizen curator project, Re:Make. And the collaboration and consultation process has not ended with the gallery’s opening – participants continue to provide input, resulting in additions, changes, trails and talks. This level of involvement is expected to continue throughout the lifespan of the exhibition.
Beginning with a blank slate, Derby Museum’s faith in the process of collaboration has resulted in a playful, imaginative, engaging and distinctive exhibition, with an influence that reaches far beyond the gallery walls.
As visitors respond to the collection emotionally and on scientific and historic levels, and previously observed passive behaviour patterns change, it is clear that the central theme of “noticing nature” has been well executed.
Dave Freak is a writer, editor, arts consultant and programmer based in the West Midlands
Focus on co-production
To develop the nature gallery we worked with hundreds of volunteers, visitors, supporters and partners to co-produce the displays.
The new gallery, Notice Nature Feel Joy, profiles 1,389 specimens from our natural history collection. Our approach to the project was open, playful, experimental and emotive, exploring the themes and stories suggested by visitors. We had a strong desire to do this with people and not simply decide the topics ourselves.
Our aim is for the gallery to be a stimulus, to excite and inspire visitors to take notice of our collection and the natural world. We hope they will leave the space full of inspiration and with a desire to appreciate and respond to the natural world around them.
Throughout the development and installation process we experimented with possibilities for the gallery, inviting people to drop in to test and play with prototypes to help shape the design and interpretation.
People told us that this open approach gave them an understanding of what went on behind the scenes. They felt the momentum of the project building and loved seeing the display develop.
They felt involved and included. Working in this way followed the success of our Re:Make project at Derby Silk Mill, where visitors and volunteers were encouraged to become curators, designers and makers.
This experience gave us increased confidence in co-producing and enabled us to allocate external design budget to materials and five creative commissions.
Utilising our Silk Mill Museum workshop and Super Nature volunteers we designed and developed simple, yet beautiful low- cost fixtures that suited the aesthetic of the room and the collection.
All of the fixtures were made in-house, with the exception of the large case for the hippopotamus skeleton (pictured below). The entire nature gallery project was a true adventure.
Andrea Hadley-Johnson is the co-production and engagement manager at Derby Museums
Project data
Cost £80,000
Main funders DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund
Curators Rachel Atherton and Louise Dunning
Technician Richard Tailby Lifelong learning programmer Chris Keady
Workshop facilitator Steve Smith