The Grant Museum of Zoology is an incredible place to get up close to amazing animal specimens.
The Grant Museum of Zoology is the only remaining university zoology museum in London. It houses around 68,000 specimens, covering the whole animal kingdom. Founded in 1828 as a teaching collection, the Museum is packed full of skeletons, mounted animals and specimens preserved in fluid. Many of the species are now endangered or extinct including the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, the quagga, and t
The Grant Museum of Zoology is the only remaining university zoology museum in London. It houses around 68,000 specimens, covering the whole animal kingdom. Founded in 1828 as a teaching collection, the Museum is packed full of skeletons, mounted animals and specimens preserved in fluid. Many of the species are now endangered or extinct including the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, the quagga, and t
Operating as usual
🐉 Create your own imaginary creature this Saturday! 🦋
Our next free Family Event with artist Lucia Vinti is drop-in art workshop Animal Inventions, Sat 28 Jan 11am-1pm:
✍️ Randomly select a name & description
🦔 Take inspiration from the specimens on display
🎨 Create your animal in drawing & collage
Read more: https://bit.ly/3R5LI01
🌊 What are your own memories of water?
On 7 Feb at 7pm in 'Hidden Rivers of London', Global Generation of thriving community garden Story Garden will share their personal water-based memories, explore the history and mythology of the river Fleet, and lead a watery creative writing workshop.
Researching the scientific, historical, cultural, and personal impact of water, Fellows will bring to the event their explorations so far and celebrate the strength of water in connecting ecological communities and bringing to the surface forgotten voices.
Join us!
⛵️ Book tickets: https://bit.ly/3GU7ejr
This event is part of Performing Planet Activism, running 31 Jan - 11 Feb 2023.
🌒 Join us on 9 Feb for Moonface, a live solo theatre show that uses clowning to explore colonial, capitalist mining practices.
How are the models created on Earth are being utilised to inform the future of interplanetary travel?
This is a special one-off evening of performance and talks exploring how much 'space' we all take up in our late-stage capitalist universe.
2023. Shady billionaires make plans to colonise and mine the solar system behind all our backs, and one rocky satellite is dangerously close to the edge. One last investigation could figure out where it all went wrong and how we can course-correct before it’s too late.
Made in collaboration with Professor Ilan Kelman, coordinator of UCL’s Space Health Risks Research group, and the London Mining Network, Moonface is a humorous and exuberant love letter to our nearest celestial neighbour.
Part of Performing Planet Activism.
Written and Performed by: Meg Hodgson
Science Collaborator: Ilan Kelman
Directed by: Helena Banerjee
Produced by: Millie Wood-Downie
Sound Design and Composition by: Livvy Lynch and Jan Baranowski
Buy tickets: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/whats-on/moonface
Photo credit: Charley Williams
🌍 Next month we're hosting two free 'Creativity around Climate Change' family events with artist Oliver Cloke as part of Performing Planet Activism.
🍃 In Wind Power on Sat 4 Feb, go on a mission to find ways to creatively harness wind energy. Join us for a sensory exploration of the museum space inspired by its specimens.
🌻 And in Flower Power and Petal Prints on Sat 11 Feb, learn about the power of the sun for plant life, and make your own petal prints from leaves and flowers.
Spaces are limited and booking essential!
Read more about the programme and book: https://bit.ly/3ijvlQt
🦇 Want to explore the Museum from a new perspective?
Our vocal workshop 'Echo Sounding in the Grant Museum' takes inspiration from the echo-location of British bat species.
Beginning with simple vocal exercises and scores for deep listening, you will work to open your senses, experiencing the Museum from a new, more-than-human vantage.
This event is part of Performing Planet Activism, running 1-11 February.
📅 Weds 8 Feb 6pm
🗣 With Echo Choir director Sarah Latto & artist/anthropologist Hermione Spriggs
👋 For all voices of all ages
Read more and book now: https://bit.ly/3CILK8d
👀 On Thurs 2 February we have THREE events exploring 'The Secret Life of Ponds' as part of Performing Planet Activism.
✒️ At 9.30am, intro workshop 'Creating Water-Inspired Poetry' is led by poet Chris Redmond and freshwater scientist Helen Greaves. Discover the science behind the declining UK farmland pond and explore creative ways in to these ideas through poetry.
🎧 At 2pm, Helen Greaves is back with sound artist Tom Fisher for 'Creating Music from the Sounds of the Pond'. Learn to use the Borderlands Granular iPad app to create sound environments inspired by underwater pond sounds.🌊🐟
🎼 At 7pm, 'The Secret Life of Ponds: Poetry, Music & Freshwater Science' transports you to a world you may not have considered before...
Artists include poets Chris Redmond, Madi Maxwell-Libby and Amina Atiq and musicians Alice Boyd, Tom Fisher and Dot.i!
📢 Don't forget you can book for all three events or just one or two. 📢
Read more and book tickets: https://bit.ly/3ijvlQt
🌍 Our brand new events programme, Performing Planet Activism, is now live!
From 1 February, 10 days of performances and workshops bring together UCL research, climate activism & artistic interpretation.
Events explore some of the pressing environmental issues of the climate crisis in unique ways that inspire action and create space for dialogue.
Full programme available here - join us!
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/projects/performing-planet-activism
We're hugely grateful for a generous award from Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport & Wolfson Foundation, announced this week by Arts Minister, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay right here at the museum.
Read more about the award, part of £4 million to make UK museums and galleries more accessible, and our exciting future plans for 'Species Under Threat':
https://bit.ly/3iDEt23
Image: Paul Ramsbottom, CEO Wolfson Foundation, Lord Parkinson Minister for Arts and Tannis Davidson, Head of Zoology and Science Collections, UCL, in the Micrarium.
📸 James Tye
🐞 Design your own incredible invertebrate this Saturday 🐛
In our next free Family Event, Lucia Vinti leads 'My Micrarium Masterpiece', a playful workshop inspired by the micrarium using colours, layers and light to explore microscope slides.
Children can take a closer look at the specimens in the micrarium and design their own miniature creatures, or recreate their favourite sample.
Visitors can take their artworks home, complete with display label and a name for their brand new specimen!
📅 Sat 26 November
⌚️ 11am-1pm (10-11am Family Members)
👋 Drop in!
Read more: https://bit.ly/3U06ttR
This handsome resident of the museum appears on last week's episode of Jo Durrant’s Beautiful Universe podcast.
🦑 Curator Hannah Cornish sheds light on our Blaschka glass models
🌊 MarineMumbles by Elizabeth Mills talks marine biology, art and science
🎧 Episode 107, 2 Nov 2022
Listen now: https://jodurrantsbeautifuluniverse.libsyn.com/jo-durrants-beautiful-universe-episode-107
Fancy some spooky storytelling here at the Museum this Halloween?
🦀 Tomorrow 8pm, SHIVERS returns with The Claw, a chiller about an island cult and their climactic crustacean celebration.
Sam Enthoven’s SHIVERS nights have been giving aficionados that sensation of spiders down the spine for five years.
Sam picks and adapts the finest frightening literature and finds great performers to read it. The result is a kind of cinema for the ears and imagination, with storytelling and sound combining to draw you irresistibly in.
📖 Laura Sampson reads
🎵 Sally Child on waterphone
🦌 Open from 7.15pm
Book now: https://bit.ly/3TH2D9L
🦉This Saturday! 🐦
In our latest Family Event, 'Birds of a Feather - Make Together', take flight with artist Fran Riando in a free creative mask-making workshop.
Birds are integral to many ecosystems, and some say we need them more than they need us.
🦆 Find out how birds help us
🎭 Make your own bird-inspired mask
👋 Drop in from 11am
Read more: https://bit.ly/3FaM95o
🏺 Keen to volunteer in museums? 🖼
We're looking for enthusiastic people to support the front of house operation here and with our friends at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and UCL Art Museum.
Acting as a first point of contact, you'll assist our museum visitor services team in welcoming the public to our collections, engaging with and encouraging visitors to explore the many thousands of objects on display.
No specialist experience is necessary and full training will be provided! All we ask is a regular commitment and a willingness to get stuck in across all of our museum sites.
⏳ Apply by 10am, Monday 17 October:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/volunteer-ucl-museums
📢 This Saturday! 📢
It's getting nippy outside so wrap up and join us for free finger-warming puppet-making workshop Finger-Puppet Fossils.
Be inspired by the hundreds of animals on display to create your very own finger puppet.
We'll look carefully at different animal specimens and fossils from the collection, and using craft materials create replica animals in puppet form.
👋 Led by arts educator Oliver Cloke
📅 Saturday 24 September
🕚 11am-1pm (10am Family Members only)
Read more: https://bit.ly/3BCc02H
🏺 Volunteer with UCL Museums! 🦴️
We're looking for enthusiastic individuals to support staff here at the Grant Museum as well as UCL Art Museum and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, welcoming and engaging with visitors.
No specialist experience is needed and full training is provided.
Apply by 20 September 5pm.
Read more and apply: https://bit.ly/3ByCu6d
Death of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II
It is with great sorrow that we hear of the death of Her Majesty The Queen, Queen Elizabeth II. We extend our very deepest sympathies and sincere condolences to the Royal Family at this extremely difficult time.
🎈 This Saturday at our free family event, Put a Label on It!, explore the collection and make your own label on a speech bubble balloon for your favourite object.
Take inspiration from our library of animal poetry, and give your object a voice in this workshop led by Orly Orbach.
If you would like to beat the crowds, the event opens at 10am for Family Members and spaces must be booked in advance. From 11am, all are welcome to drop in.
Read more and book Family Member spaces: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/whats-on/family-event-put-label-it-0
Don't miss Cultural Comedy Tours here on 15 July, a unique way to experience the Grant Museum! 😆
Award-winning comedian and Cultural Comedy Tours founder Edy Hurst is hosting tours at 6.30pm and 7.30pm.
Edy has finally written a theme tune to everyone’s favourite Jar of Moles that he cannot wait to share, along with his toy box of facts, stories and hot taxidermy takes straight from the surroundings of the museum right into your brain.
Max 15 places per tour - use code MOLEFRIEND for 2-for-1:
https://bit.ly/MolesMolesMoles
✂️ Collage Club is back this Saturday!
Drop in to a free family workshop inspired by the collections. Will you create a brilliant habitat or invent a whole new species?!
⏰ 11am - 1pm (10am Family Members only)
👋 Drop-in
🧒 Best for ages 6+
Read more: https://bit.ly/3mR3S7f
🦜️Join our mask-making workshop this Saturday 28 May! 🎭
Birds of a Feather: Make Together, a free family workshop with artist Fran Riando, takes inspiration from our 🐦🐓🦚️ .
⌚️ 11am-1pm (10am for Family Members)
👋 Drop in
🧒 Best for ages 5+
Read more: https://bit.ly/3MM0x4N
📸 Matt Clayton
📢 Free family workshop this Saturday! 📢
Drop in to My Micrarium Masterpiece, a fun workshop for young visitors with illustrator Lucia Vinti.
🔬 Explore Micrarium specimens
🌈 Play with colour and light
🐛 Design your own creepy-crawly!
The general workshop runs 11am-1pm, with an early opening hour (10-11am) open only to Family Members, if you would like to beat the crowds.
Read more: https://bit.ly/3knhhCY
We're now closed for the UCL Easter period, reopening our doors as usual on Tuesday 19 April.
We look forward to welcoming you again next week, and wish all our visitors and followers a lovely break. 🐣
Are you passionate about zoological collections? Do you have a flair for engaging diverse audiences and making collections inclusive? 🦴🦎🌍
We are recruiting an exciting Curator role, who will enable the collection’s continued use in teaching, research and as a source of inspiration about the natural world.
Could it be you?
Read more and apply by 17 April: https://bit.ly/3tMPQrD
We can't wait to host Collage Club's free family workshop tomorrow (Sat 26 March)!
🐻 Get hands on with images of the collections, creating habitats and even inventing new species.
⌚️ Drop in 11am-1pm, or from 10am for Family Members.
👀 Read more: https://bit.ly/3qAHmBM
This Saturday, drop in to Collage Club here at the Grant Museum:
✂️ Cut and paste your own creations in a free family-friendly workshop
🌳 Make a habitat for your favourite specimen - or invent a new species!
⌚️ 10am Family Members, 11am-1pm all family visitors
Read more: https://bit.ly/3L2Dn95
Why are some animal species extinct? And how can we protect others?
Drop in this Saturday to our family puppet-making workshop exploring climate change, with artist Oliver Cloke. 🐟🐆🦍🌍✂️
No booking required.
Read more: https://bit.ly/3JSt2w0
We regret that the Museum will be closed today (Friday 18 February) as our staff are unable to travel due to Storm Eunice.
Bear with us, and please stay safe.
If you can supervise a team, have great customer experience and know health & safety inside out, check out our Museum Visitor Services Manager vacancy, working across the Grant Museum of Zoology, Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and UCL Art Museum.
⏳ Apply by 7 Feb: https://bit.ly/3o7FLCh
Are you passionate about making great visitor experiences?
Our Museums - Grant Museum of Zoology, Petrie Museum and UCL Art Museum - are looking for two part-time Museum Visitor Services Assistants. 🦴️🏺🖼
⏳ Apply by 26 Jan: https://bit.ly/3FmR0wA
We're closed now until Tuesday 4 January. All staff are taking a well-earned rest, so any enquiries sent over the next two weeks will be seen in the new year. We wish all our visitors and friends a wonderful break and we'll see you soon.
Meet Chickerina, the first taxidermy chicken at the Museum. 🐔
Unlike many of our historic taxidermy specimens, we know a lot about the life of our chicken specimen.
Head of Zoology and Grant Museum curator Tannis Davidson reveals the story in our new film.
This week, Charles Darwin's earliest surviving microscope went up for auction at Christie's, and Adam Rutherford visited the Museum to find out more from Christie's' James Hyslop. 🔬
Watch the video:
On 15 December 2021, Christie’s Valuable Books & Manuscripts auction will present the Darwin Family Microscope (estimate: £250,000 – 350,000), as part of Chr...
Know someone who digs our jar of moles? 🐾
Grant their wish with Gift Membership this Christmas. 🎁
Individual or Family Membership means exploring more of our amazing collection, with exclusive stories, Members events & priority booking.
In 2022, Family Members can try out their downward dog with Family Yoga at the Museum, and Individual Members can join our curator and conservator for Conservation in Conversation.
The Grant Museum has been a centre of research and discovery about the animal kingdom since 1828. Your support through gifting Membership will help ensure our research, conservation and curatorial work continues.
Buy now: https://bit.ly/3EbYEKv
What happens when we bring together our nearly 200-year-old collection and state-of-the-art 3D printing technology? 🦴️
Find out this Friday 3 December at our exclusive Members talk, Old Specimens, New Tech, with Head of Zoology and Science Collections, and curator of the Grant Museum, Tannis Davidson.
Tannis will talk about how 3D printing has been used by the Museum in conservation, research and public programming, and about the vital role 3D prints played in teaching as part of the COVID-19 response at UCL.
Find out more about becoming a Member and book:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/whats-on/old-specimens-new-tech
Last chance to book 🎫 for our family workshop this Saturday!
Explore animal extinction and survival through discussion, stories and crafts with artist Oliver Cloke, and produce your very own puppet animal. 🐘🐟🐆🐻🦍
This workshop is suitable for ages 6+ but young children will need adult help. We will have colouring sheets available for younger children.
Only Family Member tickets left - read more and book: https://bit.ly/3cH8rvY
Thanks to photographer Martin Delaney for this beautifully atmospheric shot of the Museum after dark, from Saturday's Halloween event SHIVERS: The Derelict.
We think shadows suit us... 🦴️📷
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| Tuesday | 1pm - 5pm |
| Wednesday | 1pm - 5pm |
| Thursday | 1pm - 5pm |
| Friday | 1pm - 5pm |
| Saturday | 11am - 5pm |
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Meet Chickerina, the first taxidermy chicken at the Museum. 🐔 Unlike many of our historic taxidermy specimens, we know a lot about the life of our chicken specimen. Head of Zoology and Grant Museum curator Tannis Davidson reveals the story in our new film.
Know someone who digs our jar of moles? 🐾 Grant their wish with Gift Membership this Christmas. 🎁 Individual or Family Membership means exploring more of our amazing collection, with exclusive stories, Members events & priority booking. In 2022, Family Members can try out their downward dog with Family Yoga at the Museum, and Individual Members can join our curator and conservator for Conservation in Conversation. The Grant Museum has been a centre of research and discovery about the animal kingdom since 1828. Your support through gifting Membership will help ensure our research, conservation and curatorial work continues. Buy now: https://bit.ly/3EbYEKv
The Museum of Ordinary Animals is now open! Read about our new exhibition, which tells the stories of the boring beasts that changed the world: http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/2017/09/21/the-museum-of-ordinary-animals-opens-at-the-grant-museum/
Check out the Grant Museum's story of 2016, through the medium of blog: http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/2017/01/09/the-top-ten-grant-museum-blogs-of-2016/
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