Geek is Good

Geek specs

Geek is Good – Special exhibition

Opening 15 May 2014

Tonight we are publicly launching plans for our next special exhibition, Geek is Good, at the Oxford Geek Night at the Jericho Tavern. At the event we have been gifted just 60 seconds to make a pitch for involvement in the exhibition, so here’s a bit more information about what we’re planning.

Geek is Good will take a reverse chronological look at a few of the devices, gadgets, instruments and widgets that may have been the must-have geek gadget of their day. Who made them? Who bought them? And what exactly did they do?

Today, the idea of nerdy-geekery is pretty cool, and that’s where we’ll start, but it hasn’t always been that way. We’ll chart a few areas of geeky interest, from early home computing in the 1980s, to ham radio, calculating machines, amateur astronomy and the sundials and astronomical compendia of the Renaissance and beyond.

There will also be an accompanying programme of public events and we are now interested in hearing from anybody who might want to collaborate on a relevant event, to be hosted at the Museum sometime between 15 May and late September. We’re also looking for potential lenders of material – 1970s calculators or giant classroom slide rules anyone? – as well as a possible project partner to develop an interactive game for the gallery.

If you’re interested or have any questions contact me at scott.billings@mhs.ox.ac.uk, follow us @MHSOxford and watch out for #geekisgood on Twitter.

The Art and Science of Taxidermy

Derek FramptonOn Sunday 18 August we had the pleasure of hosting professional freelance taxidermist Derek Frampton at the Museum. Derek delivered a very popular illustrated Table Talk on the Art and Science of Taxidermy.

The event was part of the public programme for the Natural Histories special exhibition, which has been put together in collaboration with the Museum of Natural History.

An attentive audience

An attentive audience

Derek has pretty much been a taxidermist his whole life, having started by collecting, dissecting and drawing animals as a boy. Since then he has done a lot of work for museums, including the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and the Natural History Museum in London, where he helped prepare Guy, the Museum’s famous gorilla.

“I really liked drawing and painting animals and would collect things I found. Then I realised I could open them up and became fascinated by the way they worked inside – the mechanics of the muscles and skeleton,” Derek told visitors to the Museum.

Art and Science of Taxidermy

Finishing touches

“But after a while the specimens started to get smelly and I’d get into trouble with my mum. So I’d have to throw them away and find some new ones. Eventually somebody said to me that the technique for preserving the animals was called taxidermy. I bought a book on it and I have been doing it ever since.”

For the Table Talk, Derek brought along the skin of a female partridge which had been killed in a road traffic accident.

During the hour he went through the process of turning the prepared skin into a finished piece of taxidermy. Using a photograph of a live partridge as a reference, Derek padded the bird with tow, a natural fibre, and inserted florists’ rods to give it a natural shape and posture.

Partridge and Derek Frampton

Partridge and Derek Frampton

At the end of the process the bird was tied and pinned to allow the skin to fully dry and contract, after which the cotton bindings will be removed.

The presentation was a fascinating insight into the half-art, half-science of taxidermy and the perfect complement to the Collect, Preserve, Study display in the Natural Histories exhibition.

Art and Science of Taxidermy