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Creating a Sustainable Exhibition
Behind the Scenes, Collections, Featured, Natural ScienceTemporary exhibitions can make a huge demand on resources. Making them happen often means using lots of materials, many of them for bespoke elements necessary to each exhibition.
In July 2018 Leeds City Museum opened an exhibition exploring and celebrating the beautiful things made by animals. ‘Beavers to Weavers: the wonderful world of animal makers’ aimed to showcase the way in which animals often use what they find around them, and use resources only according to their need. This made it an ideal fit for us to look at how we were using resources, and how we might be able to make some changes.
A cocoon made by a caterpillar. This was one of the animal-made objects on display in the exhibition.
From the outset we knew that we wanted to deliver this exhibition differently to our previous projects. We put sustainability at the heart of our practice. This meant devising our own principles for the project, undertaking all development work with these in mind, and constantly evaluating our plans against these principles. Here’s a selection of some of the things we did:
Cardboard graphics were used in the exhibition.
We sourced all of our paint from Seagulls Reuse for the exhibition
Printing labels on the original Albion printing press in our collection
Creating an object label using a letterpress from the collection, on recycled paper.
Object labels used in the exhibition.
We also wanted to use the exhibition to develop our relationships with community groups, building more sustainable audiences for the museum. A number of the installations in the gallery were the result of working with community groups. This included a termite mound, which is a nice example of individuals cooperating to build something beautiful, together. The mound was created using the homemade paper, as well as other recycled paper, and old exhibition panels.
The printing was completed by our Curator of Natural Sciences and Assistant Community Curator at Leeds Industrial Museum working with groups including Peer Support (for people living with dementia) and Pyramid of Arts, as well as visitors to both Leeds Industrial Museum and Leeds Discovery Centre.
By Ruth Martin, Exhibitions Curator at Leeds Museums & Galleries.