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TRANSMUTATION DIARY The partner newsletter of www.darwin200.org July 2009 1 Transmutation Diary www.darwin200.org July 2009 Darwin200 Darwin200 partner activities continue throughout the summer. The British Council/NHM International Student Summit in early July focused on Darwin and contemporary science, while Darwin200 supported the biodiversity session in the meeting Twenty-five thousand Royal Mint, of the World Congress of Science Journalists in London in £2 anniversary coins have been struck. See www.royalmint.com/store/BritishBase/UKCDB that same week. A major highlight of Darwin Year is of course U.aspx the festival and celebrations in Cambridge which are taking place as this edition is being written www.darwin2009.cam.ac.uk. What’s on Meanwhile the whole phenomenon of Darwin200 is attracting After Darwin: Contemporary interest. At the British Science Association (BSA) Expressions Communication Conference in June it was explored in the 26 June – 29 November An exhibition of major artists context of ‘Are Years of… a Success?’ Meanwhile here in the and writers exhibiting existing secretariat we have been receiving requests from organisations and newly commissioned both within the UK and abroad asking how Darwin200 has work inspired by Darwin’s book, worked and if they can apply the model to other forthcoming The Expression of the Emotions anniversaries and ‘Years of’ celebrations. We still have a while in Man and Animals. The to go before Darwin200 climaxes in November with the 150th exhibition features work by anniversary of On the Origin of Species, but the general opinion Gautier Deblonde, Jeremy Deller seems to be that Darwin200 has really reached diverse and Matthew Killip in audiences and created in-depth explorations of Darwin, his ideas collaboration with Richard and their relevance today. Why this success? Well I think the Wiseman, Tina Gonsalves, Mark answer is simple – and it’s the same answer to a different Haddon, Ruth Padel, Diana Thater and Bill Viola. question. At the BSA conference I was asked, ‘How do you deal www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats- with Darwin fatigue?’ My reply was that the diversity of partners on/expressions/index.html who are engaged, their perspectives and their audiences continue to make Darwin200 refreshing and surprising. However, Front cover – After Darwin: Contemporary Expressions, NHM, derived from work of if there is success we would like more evidence of it. What has evolutionary biologist N N Ladygina-Kohts this actually meant for partners? Accompanying this newsletter Comparative Study of Ape Emotions and Intelligence, Darwin Museum Moscow, 1935. is an evaluation form. If you can, please send us your feedback, as we would like to share the lessons learned for the benefit Garden Detectives of others. 26 June – 27 September Visit a special summer holiday We are also trying to keep an archive of what has happened in exhibition for families at the Darwin200 during the year – please send us copies of your National Museum of Scotland events programmes or any related press info – paper or based on the simple methods electronic. of observation at the heart of Darwin’s work. www.nms.ac.uk/our_museums/na Katie Edwards, tional_museum/coming_soon/gar Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD den_detectives.aspx c/o [email protected] Cont’d… 2 Transmutation Diary www.darwin200.org July 2009 Creation – The movie What’s on Seeing the Light: Finch by Finch 3 July – 15 September An exhibition of cast glass Galapagos finch beaks by glass artist Tolly Nason is being held at the University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge. In this project, Tolly has cast the beaks of 14 Galapagos finches collected by Darwin in solid red glass at 20 times their original size. www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/museum/eve nts Simple Beginnings: The Story of Detail from the set of Darwin's study in Down House Evolution, Bolton Museum, Aquarium and Archive Part ghost story, part psychological thriller, part heart-wrenching love story, Creation is the powerful story of Charles Darwin and the single most explosive idea in history. Creation stars Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly, Jeremy Northam, Toby Jones and Benedict Cumberbatch and is due to be released on 25th September. Darwin’s great, still controversial, book On the Origin of Species depicts nature as a battleground. In Creation the battleground is a man’s heart. Torn between his love for his deeply religious wife and his own growing belief in a world where God has no place, Darwin finds himself caught in a struggle between faith and reason, love and truth. This exhibition opened in June. It This is not the grey-bearded old man that most people imagine when examines who Darwin was and they think of Darwin. The Darwin we meet in Creation is a young, why his ideas were so important. vibrant father, husband and friend whose mental and physical health Explore how evolution works by gradually buckles under the weight of guilt and grief for a lost child. looking at ammonites, finches Ultimately it is Annie, his adored ten year-old daughter who leads him and snakes. Runs until Saturday out of darkness and helps him reconnect with his wife and family. Only 7 November. See more about the then is he able to create the book that changed the world. Told in a exhibition and the supporting dazzling collage of scenes from the past and present, laced with programme of events and talks at stories of exotic animals and the dark dreams of a troubled mind www.boltonmuseums.org.uk/what Creation is a film that will provoke, entertain and ultimately deeply son move audiences. Darwin Summer Talks Directed by Jon Amiel (Entrapment) from a screenplay by John Collee July – August (Master and the Commander), based on Randal Keynes’ book, Annie’s Every Wednesday evening in July Box, about the life of his great great grandfather Charles Darwin. and August the Chelsea Physic Produced by Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor). Garden is hosting a Darwin- themed talk. Subjects include See: www.creationthemovie.com Darwin’s love of plants, Darwin Exclusive clip at: and Victorian visual culture and www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/5505963/Creation-the-movie- retracing Darwin’s travels through world-exclusive-trailer.html Patagonia and Chile. www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk/ 3 Transmutation Diary www.darwin200.org July events Cont’d… 2009 Endless Forms What’s on A Voyage Round the World 6 July – 23 December, Cambridge University Library. The exhibition reunites manuscripts and natural history specimens from the University’s collections, many of them never before seen in public, and Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual explores how Darwin’s experiences on the Beagle played Arts opened last month at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. an essential role in the It explores the impact of Darwin’s theories upon artists of the late formulation of his theories. nineteenth century. This large exhibition of nearly 200 objects is arranged in themed sections exploring artists’ depictions of the Darwin the Geologist natural world both before and after Darwin published his The Sedgwick Museum, controversial ideas. By juxtaposing artworks and scientific University of Cambridge. specimens of the time, the exhibition persuades us to view the This is a major, new exhibition art differently in order to understand how Darwin was influenced of the geological specimens by the visual culture of his time – from the powerful and brutal collected by Darwin during the depictions of nature to the precise, detailed botanical drawings of voyage of the HMS Beagle. This Hooker and Henslow – and to see how later artists, including the new permanent display opened Impressionists, were in turn influenced by Darwin’s theories. on 7 July. The exhibition complements Charles Darwin – Becoming a Geologist which Traditional landscape paintings, photos and sculptures are tells the story of Darwin’s viewed alongside cases of scientific specimens including childhood and student life. minerals, fossils and a stunning display of Argus pheasant feathers. Artists include Landseer, Monet, two newly commissioned cartoons of a young and an old Darwin by Quentin Blake and even Darwin’s own hand-drawn map showing a cross-section through a mountain range in Chile. The exhibition has already been seen by 25,000 visitors at the Yale Center for Visual Art and, being the biggest exhibition to open so far at the Fitzwilliam Museum, it is likely to be just as popular there as it coincides with the Darwin 2009 Festival at Cambridge during July. As part of the opening Endless Forms, 16 June – 4 October: celebrations the Sedgwick www.darwinendlessforms.org Museum is also hosting a conference entitled: For a full review see: www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturecritics/richarddorment/56036 Darwin in the Field: Collecting, 43/Endless-Forms-Charles-Darwin-at-the-Fitzwilliam-Museum--- Observation and Experiment review.html The conference will explore Darwin’s field skills and his legacy of records and collections. 11–12 July 2009. See: www.sedgwickmuseum.org/about /news/090518_darwin_conferenc e.html 4 Transmutation Diary www.darwin200.org July 2009 New Darwin resource online Darwin – abroad The Institute Charles Darwin International (ICDI) created in Paris in 1998 has been running conferences and events focusing on Darwin’s work, republishing Darwin’s complete works in French and encouraging studies of Darwin’s work to reappraise Galapagos mockingbird courtesy of ARKive areas which have in the past been ignored or misinterpreted. ARKive has launched a significant addition to its website as part of its response to Darwin200. With the support of the British ICDI has developed a variety of Council’s Darwin Now programme, this includes a exhibition materials, including free-to-download massive multimedia resource that profiles 50 versions translated for English species intimately related to Charles Darwin’s voyage speaking counties.
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