National Museums Liverpool Blog - Thursday, August 24, 2006

Today I encountered two very different sniffer dogs at the Customs and Excise Museum.

Two of our roleplayers, dressed as the larger-than-life characters Smugglebuster the customs officer and Sniffer the dog, were greeting visitors to the museum.

Outside I met the real deal - customs officer Claire Dewhirst with her sniffer dog, who were at the museum today doing demonstrations for the public.

If you missed today's demonstrations then you have another chance to see a real sniffer dog at the museum next Thursday.

Smugglebuster and Sniffer will also be back at the museum soon. For full details of all the events and activities taking place over the next few weeks have a look at the What's On listings.

This morning the press got to preview the exhibition Hello Sailor! Gay life on the ocean wave, which opens to the public tomorrow. Dr Jo Stanley, co-author of the book Hello Sailor! that inspired the exhibition, and some of the seafarers that she interviewed during her research, also got to see the finished exhibition for the first time, and were thrilled with how it looked.

Jo is pictured above inspecting some rather bling glittery shoes in the recreated steward's cabin with Robert (on the left), whose reminiscences feature in the exhibition and Jay (in the middle), one of the museum's roleplayers. Jay is wearing a ship's steward uniform, but will be transformed into a glamorous performer for the exhibition opening this evening.

Learning officer Karen Charnock gave me a sneak preview of the silver dress that he will be wearing to perform a cabaret show, like the crew shows that gay seafarers used to perform during their time off on ships.

This morning I got to see the catchily named Canning River Entrance Swing Bridge in action, swinging aside to let a boat pass from the Mersey into the Canning Half Tide Dock (which is the one outside the front door of the Maritime Museum). Here it is:

The footbridge rotates to the left to let boats into the dock

Crowds and a pigeon watch the boat sail into the dock

Yesterday was Slavery Remembrance Day. A series of events culminated in a ritual libation on the banks of the river Mersey. These images give you an idea of what happened on the day.

You can listen to an interview with Tony Tibbles, keeper of the Merseyside Maritime Museum, on the Vatican Radio website. He talks about the background to the day and the museum's involvement in the celebrations.

There's more on the Slavery Remembrance pages on our main site.

Update (11.10.06) Bev Mitchell, community coordinator at the Mersey Basin Campaign, attended the event and blogged it here.

Chief Angus Chukuemeka leads the libation ceremony with other community leaders. He called on ancestors to bless the event and then paid homage to the ancestors.

The libation was held on the banks of the Mersey in front of a large crowd.

The River Niger Orchestra enter the marquee for an afternoon of celebration.

The orchestra was one of several performances in a day of acting, poetry, music and crafts.

Keeper of Art Galleries at National Museums Liverpool, Julian Treuherz, gave a lecture at the Lady Lever Art Gallery this afternoon on 'Bubbles', by Sir John Everett Millais.

The lecture is now available as an audio download from our site (mp3/transcript/links).

The 30 minute talk covers the long term loan of 'Bubbles' to the Lady Lever from Unilever, memento mori, fancy portraits, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the Maurits house at The Hague, competition between Pears Soap and Sunlight Soap, the Graphic magazine and the theme of death in Millais's paintings. 

Fossil horsetail fragments found in the siltstones. These are the most abundant plant fossils.

If you think that garden restoration projects are daunting, spare a thought for the geologists who are attempting to reinterpret a lost world. Imagine trying to recreate your garden from the contents of your compost bin after it hasn't been emptied for years. That's the nature of the task geologists face when trying to picture a long vanished world.

Staff from the Earth Sciences section at World Museum Liverpool are currently involved in long term field work investigating the Triassic flora of Merseyside. The aim is to find out what type of plants grew locally 242 million years ago so that we can get a better picture of that past environment.

Exposure of Triassic siltstones containing plant remains

The region is famous for the fossilised footprints of the dinosaurs' ancestors (you can see some at the museum). However, we can also learn about the environment from the fragmentary remains of plants - we currently known very little about their distribution or diversity.  We aim to learn as much as we can about the Triassic plant communities and the role they played in supporting the population of plant eating reptiles (Rhynchosaurs) and meat eaters (Chirotherium).

Over the coming months staff from the team will be reporting back on what they find and we'll post the results here. In the meantime if you want to find out more contact either Alan Bowden or Wendy Simkiss.

At the Maritime Museum a new exhibition, Hello Sailor! Gay life on the ocean wave, is currently being installed, ready to open on Friday. The exhibition includes a recreation of a sailor's cabin from the 1960s-70s, complete with evocative props from the era such as the pineapple ice bucket that curator Charlotte Stead is holding in this photo. My grandparents had one of them - but then I suppose everybody's grandparents did at the time! Who would have thought that one would end up in a museum display?

The exhibition is looking 'fantabulosa' so far (as gay sailors would say in polari) so I can't wait to see the finished thing on Friday.

'Minerva', Auguste Rodin

Our temporary display of six Rodin sculptures from the Walker Art Gallery's permanent collection ends on Bank Holiday Monday, 28 August 2006.

The six bronze sculptures - 'Danaid', 'Death of Athens', 'Eve', 'Fleeting Love', 'Minerva', 'Sister and Brother' - were all bequeathed to the Walker in the 1920s by Liverpool wine merchant James Smith.

A recording of Curator of Continental Art Xanthe Brooke's May artwork of the month talk on 'Danaid' is also available online (mp3 file/transcript/links).

This week's ingredients list for the livestock in the Bug House in World Museum Liverpool:

Dung beetles feeding on dung

• 1 huge bucket full of Bramble
• 7 pots of fresh food plant
• 7 bags full of fresh grass
• 5 bags full of petals
• 5 dishes full of donkey dung
• 10 handfuls of fish flake
• 1/2 handful of honey nut loops
• 1/2 handful of rabbit pellets
• 1 handful of bran
• 2 handfuls of special Bug House recipe insect mix
• 3 handfuls of special Bug House recipe hermit crab food
• 1/2 cup of ambrosia bee food
• 6 oranges
• 6 apples
• 6 bananas
• 1 lettuce
• 2 boxes of crickets
• 1 box of flies
• 1/2 box of mealworms

As I look out of the window at the torrential rain, I can't help thinking that the organisers of Southport Flower Show may have had a premonition. Apparently this year's theme is water - and if this weather continues throughout the weekend, then water there certainly shall be!

Perhaps they were tipped off by celebrity astrologer Russell Grant, who officially launches the flower show's 'ladies day' tomorrow.  

Southport Flower Show has picked a water theme for 2006

Luckily there are masses of marquees and undercover areas as well as the show gardens, so there's no chance of it being a washout. 

National Museums Liverpool's smiley marketing officers will be bringing their own particular brand of sunshine to the event, by giving out information on all of our current happenings. 

Budding horticulturists (sorry - bad joke) can find out more about World Museum Liverpool's botanical collections on our website. 

• Southport Flower Show
• National Wildflower Centre

'Street Life: Liverpool in Fashion', featuring photography by Mark McNulty and Victoria Spofforth, ends at the National Conservation Centre this Sunday, 20 August, 2006.

Image copyright Mark McNulty

• Exhibition review at Art in Liverpool
• Exhibition review from Nerve Magazine
• Mark McNulty interview in Liverpool Echo
• Mark McNulty and Victoria Spofforth interviews in Liverpool Daily Post
• Mark McNulty website

Those trekking to Hinkley for this weekend's Discworld Convention will be interested in plans for a major retrospective of Josh Kirby's artwork at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, next year.

Josh Kirby studied at Liverpool Art School in the 1940s and is best known for designing the book covers for Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. The exhibition, planned for Summer 2007, will include around 150 works spanning his career. It will include original works, studies, sketches, magazines, film posters and book covers. I'm told it will encompass all sorts of weird worlds, marvellous maidens and fantastical, magical creatures - but it won't be restricted to just Discworld material, so watch this space. 

Kirby also designed the film poster for Return of the Jedi and one for Monty Python's Life of Brian (possibly inspired by Bruegel's Tower of Babel). Coincidentally, while looking for Kirby links on the Python's Daily Llama I stumbled upon the Silly Walks Generator. Not strictly connected of course - but far too silly to keep to myself. 

Staff at World Museum Liverpool's Clore Natural History Centre have been experimenting with their new macro lens and have sent over this image.

According to Mike Graham, Curatorial Manager of the Bug House, Planetarium, Aquarium and Clore Natural History Centre, 'We are looking at the reproductive organs of a Meadow Cranesbill, a wild flower which is a member of the Geranium family. The red stalk like rod in the centre is the carpel which consists of the stigma which receives the pollen and the style and ovary which contains the ovules. This is the female part and the black anthers on the stamens surrounding the stigma are where the pollen is produced. If you look closely you can see the pollen grains on the anthers. Bees cross pollinate the flowers when they are collecting nectar.'

• BBC Gardening Plantfinder - Meadow Cranesbill
• Natural History Museum Meadow Cranesbill seedpot greeting card
• Slideshow of photos tagged 'meadowcranesbill' on Flickr
• University of British Columbia Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research's Botany photo of the day blog

See works of art up close in the conservation studios

Have you ever wondered exactly what goes on behind the scenes at the National Conservation Centre? Do questions along the lines of "just how the blazes do you clean a priceless fragile antique or work of art without damaging it?" keep you awake at night? If so then clear your diary next Wednesday and head over to the open day.

Throughout the day on 16 August eight different departments at the centre will be inviting visitors behind the scenes for guided tours.

Please note that for safety and security reasons places are strictly limited on each tour and must be booked in advance.

If you can't make it on a tour then you can see information about the work of our conservation departments on the website. There's also a recently updated gallery of case studies of projects by conservation technologies and sculpture conservation.

Well, almost. This afternoon Ann Bukantas, who looks after fine art at the Walker, gave a fab behind the scenes talk on the recent redisplay of the modern and contemporary collections at the gallery. She delivered a lesson on curatorial decision making covering topics like what colour to paint the walls, how to make the gallery accessible to all visitors, how to pick the pieces and then how how to arrange the artworks around the room. The talk went down really well with the visitors present.

If you think that's up your street you'll be pleased to hear Ann is repeating the session on Monday 31 August at 1pm. Booking isn't necessary.

Update: make that THURSDAY 31 August

Update: (04/09/06) an audio download of the talk is now available

Ann fascinates the visitors

This month the WildlifeTrust celebrates the UK's marine environment with a series of Marine Weeks events lasting from 5 to 20 August.

There's nothing I like more than a stroll along the coast in the sunshine. It was a bit breezy down on the waterfront earlier today though, so I might just enjoy some marine wildlife from the comfort of indoors in the Aquarium at World Museum Liverpool instead.

In their coldwater tanks you can see replications of two underwater environments from the north west - the rocky coast of the Isle of Anglesey in North Wales and the sandy shores of Dee estuary around Hilbre Island.

Outdoor types can find out more about Marine Week events on the Wildlife Trust website.