» Manchester Hermit Continues his Quest to Challenge the Importance of Museum Archives
Since entering The Manchester Museum’s Gothic tower on 27th June, Ansuman Biswas has identified a separate object on each day of his residency, calling on the public to reassess the value of museums’ hidden collections, and encouraging debate around the issues of conservation and extinction.
Presenting objects including a human skull, beautiful diatoms (microscopic algae), a malaria-bearing Anopheles mosquito and even snail shells collected after a takeaway meal, the Hermit has questioned whether museums need to keep such large collections, many of them rarely if ever seen by anyone, and has addressed much larger themes of the fragility of ecosystems and the necessity to protect all vulnerable forms of life.
The “hermit” has one of the more interesting blogs I have ever read in my life, www.manchesterhermit.wordpress.com, even moreso than mine (if you can believe it). Moment of honesty? Mine would be more interesting if I was locked in a museum for an extended (weeks) amount of time with full access to the permanent collection too. So no judgements, ok?
Also, if any museums would like me to take up residency in their storage facilities and blog for them I will. I’m looking at you, and you, and you, and you. Not neccessarily in that order.
