Zoe Dennington warms to this eclectic and unpredictable show
The Royal Albert Memorial Museum’s (Ramm) winter exhibition Whatever the Weather seems timely. In the damp and mild West Country, memories of the 2013 flooding of the Somerset levels linger. Then in December 2015, Storm Desmond left thousands of homes across the north of England flooded – indeed the train that takes me from Bristol to Exeter to view the exhibition races past waterlogged fields.
Britain has a temperate maritime climate. Compared with parts of the world commonly besieged by hurricanes, frazzled by drought or blanketed by snow, our weather is rather pedestrian. Despite, or perhaps because of, this mediocrity, the British share an enduring preoccupation with the weather. Gathering together a pleasingly eclectic range of objects including historical paintings, early meteorological instruments, and artefacts from the museum’s world cultures collections, Whatever the Weather explores the history of this fascination and our vulnerability in the face of extreme weather events.
The exhibition begins with a focus on the elemental power of storms and their influence on the artistic imagination. Historic oil paintings from Ramm’s collection and pieces on loan from the National Trust collection at Stourhead depict stricken war ships battered by raging seas. Brooding skies glower over desperate survivors in Claude-Joseph Vernet’s work Midday: Storm and Shipwreck (1760). A series of paintings and engravings reveals the history of the four lighthouses at Eddystone Rocks, south of the bay of Plymouth Sound, and the storms that have engulfed them.
Cultural connections
The devastating aftermath of storms is also explored by Joanna Brown’s ARKive project, which brings together historical images of flooding from around the world. Similarities emerge in the anguished faces of flood victims as they attempt to haul people, possessions and animals from murky, rushing waters. There are also photographs of American and British women cheerily hanging washing up to dry, skirts hitched up above flood waters.
The introduction of objects from the museum’s large world cultures collections has allowed the curators to examine people’s varied explanations for extreme weather events. Accounts of great floods have appeared in cultural documents around the world; at Ramm, tales of Noah’s ark are placed alongside small pottery rain gods from Tesuque Pueblo, New Mexico. There is a ceramic bottle from Peru made in the image of a thorny oyster, a sea creature celebrated by the Peruvians for its powers of weather prediction. Historically, the Peruvian people have used the appearance of the oysters, which only arrive in coastal waters with the warmer temperatures brought by El Niño weather events, to map changes in global weather systems.
As well as objects from further afield there is a display of costumes made to protect local people from the Devon weather. These include an extraordinary 18th-century “calash” – an elaborate hood constructed from oiled silk supported by cane hoops, designed to keep the wearer dry without spoiling extravagant hairstyles or millinery. A pristine bleached cotton sun bonnet and a pair of wooden overshoes evoke the efforts of rural Devonians to protect themselves from sun and rain.
The exhibition’s second room is a light, airy space. A series of sombre 18th- and 19th-century barometers and thermometers lines the wall. An elegant anemometer (a wind speed measuring device) shines alongside rustic weather vanes and the 19th-century logbook from HMS Blossom, in which the hydrographer of the Royal Navy, Francis Beaufort, outlined his wind-force scale in a precise hand. The interpretation explores the development of meteorology and how the Georgian fascination with recording the weather evolved into the Victorian determination to predict it.
A corner of the exhibition is devoted to Admiral Fitzroy, commander of HMS Beagle, the survey ship that transported Charles Darwin around the world. Driven by the storms of 1859, which wrecked about 200 ships, the Meteorological Office was established, with Fitzroy at its helm. Taking advantage of new telegraph technology, Fitzroy and his team collated data from a network of weather stations, producing the first weather forecast in 1861.
A pleasing contrast between the historical and the contemporary is provided by Wembury & Woolacombe (2015), an installation by digital media artist Susan Collins. Working in collaboration with the National Trust, Collins has recorded the view at two locations on the Devonshire coastline, taking images over an extended duration. These are transmitted live to the gallery, creating an on-screen image that changes gradually over a six-hour period. The results are strangely beautiful: a shining, shifting landscape of sea and sky.
Engaging visitors
A playful tone is introduced in the exhibition’s interactive area. A large magnetic weather map invites visitors to try their hand at presenting the forecast, with social media handles provided so that they can share their efforts. The visitor before me displayed classic British optimism by arranging a swathe of rain clouds across England, while Northern Ireland seemed to be enjoying unprecedented levels of sunshine. A quick glance at Ramm’s Twitter feed reveals a parade of weather- presenting visitors, reflecting the success of combining a low-tech interactive activity with the smartphone technology many visitors carry in their pockets.
Further visitor engagement is encouraged by an intriguing events programme, which takes the exhibition beyond the museum and into the great outdoors. National Trust rangers lead walks at Woolacombe and Wembury, giving an insight into coastal conservation in north Devon. There are tours around the Met Office headquarters and hands-on weather activities for younger visitors, including climate roulette and the chance to make your own cloud in a bottle. Dementia-friendly gallery tours are also on offer as part of Ramm’s ongoing work with dementia sufferers and their friends, relatives and carers.
The only section of the exhibition I found mildly disappointing was its final look at climate change, which felt lukewarm compared with the rest of show. My companion for the day happened to be an environmental scientist and I found her tutting over a text panel on the uncertain future of the global climate, which she judged to be couched in language that paid too much heed to the views of climate change deniers.
If the written interpretation sits on the fence of the climate debate, Julian Grater’s monumental images of the Arctic are more hard-hitting. Photographs tell the unsettling tale of the Sermeq Kujalleq Glacier in Greenland, which has retreated 15km over the past decade.
Ultimately, I am charmed by Whatever the Weather’s eclecticism. The exhibition is unusual in its willingness to draw on objects from diverse disciplines, placing scientific instruments alongside pieces of contemporary art, and the result is eccentric, varied and as unpredictable as a British summer afternoon.
Zoe Dennington is the head of visitor experience at the American Museum in Britain, Bath
Main funders Arts Council England; Art Fund; Exeter City Council
Key contractors Curation, conservation and design in-house team
Research and development National Trust; Met Office
Exhibition ends 10 April
Admission Free
The Royal Albert Memorial Museum’s (Ramm) winter exhibition Whatever the Weather seems timely. In the damp and mild West Country, memories of the 2013 flooding of the Somerset levels linger. Then in December 2015, Storm Desmond left thousands of homes across the north of England flooded – indeed the train that takes me from Bristol to Exeter to view the exhibition races past waterlogged fields.
Britain has a temperate maritime climate. Compared with parts of the world commonly besieged by hurricanes, frazzled by drought or blanketed by snow, our weather is rather pedestrian. Despite, or perhaps because of, this mediocrity, the British share an enduring preoccupation with the weather. Gathering together a pleasingly eclectic range of objects including historical paintings, early meteorological instruments, and artefacts from the museum’s world cultures collections, Whatever the Weather explores the history of this fascination and our vulnerability in the face of extreme weather events.
The exhibition begins with a focus on the elemental power of storms and their influence on the artistic imagination. Historic oil paintings from Ramm’s collection and pieces on loan from the National Trust collection at Stourhead depict stricken war ships battered by raging seas. Brooding skies glower over desperate survivors in Claude-Joseph Vernet’s work Midday: Storm and Shipwreck (1760). A series of paintings and engravings reveals the history of the four lighthouses at Eddystone Rocks, south of the bay of Plymouth Sound, and the storms that have engulfed them.
Cultural connections
The devastating aftermath of storms is also explored by Joanna Brown’s ARKive project, which brings together historical images of flooding from around the world. Similarities emerge in the anguished faces of flood victims as they attempt to haul people, possessions and animals from murky, rushing waters. There are also photographs of American and British women cheerily hanging washing up to dry, skirts hitched up above flood waters.
The introduction of objects from the museum’s large world cultures collections has allowed the curators to examine people’s varied explanations for extreme weather events. Accounts of great floods have appeared in cultural documents around the world; at Ramm, tales of Noah’s ark are placed alongside small pottery rain gods from Tesuque Pueblo, New Mexico. There is a ceramic bottle from Peru made in the image of a thorny oyster, a sea creature celebrated by the Peruvians for its powers of weather prediction. Historically, the Peruvian people have used the appearance of the oysters, which only arrive in coastal waters with the warmer temperatures brought by El Niño weather events, to map changes in global weather systems.
As well as objects from further afield there is a display of costumes made to protect local people from the Devon weather. These include an extraordinary 18th-century “calash” – an elaborate hood constructed from oiled silk supported by cane hoops, designed to keep the wearer dry without spoiling extravagant hairstyles or millinery. A pristine bleached cotton sun bonnet and a pair of wooden overshoes evoke the efforts of rural Devonians to protect themselves from sun and rain.
The exhibition’s second room is a light, airy space. A series of sombre 18th- and 19th-century barometers and thermometers lines the wall. An elegant anemometer (a wind speed measuring device) shines alongside rustic weather vanes and the 19th-century logbook from HMS Blossom, in which the hydrographer of the Royal Navy, Francis Beaufort, outlined his wind-force scale in a precise hand. The interpretation explores the development of meteorology and how the Georgian fascination with recording the weather evolved into the Victorian determination to predict it.
A corner of the exhibition is devoted to Admiral Fitzroy, commander of HMS Beagle, the survey ship that transported Charles Darwin around the world. Driven by the storms of 1859, which wrecked about 200 ships, the Meteorological Office was established, with Fitzroy at its helm. Taking advantage of new telegraph technology, Fitzroy and his team collated data from a network of weather stations, producing the first weather forecast in 1861.
A pleasing contrast between the historical and the contemporary is provided by Wembury & Woolacombe (2015), an installation by digital media artist Susan Collins. Working in collaboration with the National Trust, Collins has recorded the view at two locations on the Devonshire coastline, taking images over an extended duration. These are transmitted live to the gallery, creating an on-screen image that changes gradually over a six-hour period. The results are strangely beautiful: a shining, shifting landscape of sea and sky.
Engaging visitors
A playful tone is introduced in the exhibition’s interactive area. A large magnetic weather map invites visitors to try their hand at presenting the forecast, with social media handles provided so that they can share their efforts. The visitor before me displayed classic British optimism by arranging a swathe of rain clouds across England, while Northern Ireland seemed to be enjoying unprecedented levels of sunshine. A quick glance at Ramm’s Twitter feed reveals a parade of weather- presenting visitors, reflecting the success of combining a low-tech interactive activity with the smartphone technology many visitors carry in their pockets.
Further visitor engagement is encouraged by an intriguing events programme, which takes the exhibition beyond the museum and into the great outdoors. National Trust rangers lead walks at Woolacombe and Wembury, giving an insight into coastal conservation in north Devon. There are tours around the Met Office headquarters and hands-on weather activities for younger visitors, including climate roulette and the chance to make your own cloud in a bottle. Dementia-friendly gallery tours are also on offer as part of Ramm’s ongoing work with dementia sufferers and their friends, relatives and carers.
The only section of the exhibition I found mildly disappointing was its final look at climate change, which felt lukewarm compared with the rest of show. My companion for the day happened to be an environmental scientist and I found her tutting over a text panel on the uncertain future of the global climate, which she judged to be couched in language that paid too much heed to the views of climate change deniers.
If the written interpretation sits on the fence of the climate debate, Julian Grater’s monumental images of the Arctic are more hard-hitting. Photographs tell the unsettling tale of the Sermeq Kujalleq Glacier in Greenland, which has retreated 15km over the past decade.
Ultimately, I am charmed by Whatever the Weather’s eclecticism. The exhibition is unusual in its willingness to draw on objects from diverse disciplines, placing scientific instruments alongside pieces of contemporary art, and the result is eccentric, varied and as unpredictable as a British summer afternoon.
Zoe Dennington is the head of visitor experience at the American Museum in Britain, Bath
Project data
Cost £46,000Main funders Arts Council England; Art Fund; Exeter City Council
Key contractors Curation, conservation and design in-house team
Research and development National Trust; Met Office
Exhibition ends 10 April
Admission Free
