Of dioramas, portraits and ‘natural’ history
As briefly discussed in my previous post, I have been in Denver over the past few days for a conference (on which something will appear soon over on the Longitude blog). I am lucky enough to have a friend there who works at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, with whom I trekked up through snowy City Park on Thursday morning. The sites inside the museum were as stunning as outside!
What struck me most was the display of natural history dioramas. These have gone spectacularly out of fashion in British museums, and are considered stuffy and often colonialist when including native peoples as well as animals. But the Denver ones are beautiful and fresh, giving a very engaging sense of the animals in their natural habitats and in relationship to each other. Excellent interpretation panels and interactives relate the dioramas to the habitats they represent, and to the work of scientists to investigate them. I got a real sense of the spectacular Colorado scenery without having to leave the city. One small area of the natural history galleries displayed the exhibits as we would expect them in most such museums: clearly isolated specimens in shining glass cases. I realised that these made me appreciate the animals as expertly preserved scientific objects, but barely as the animals they once were. By contrast, another excellent section made me appreciate the intense skill and labour which goes into the dioramas.
With my British museum sector prejudices, I was initially unimpressed to find that the section on North American Indian Cultures was part of the natural history galleries, but was again proved short-sighted. The connection was established through artefacts made by a range of tribes out of the animals and plants in their environments: nature and people in symbiosis. The galleries then opened with two thought-provoking displays. One, by James Luna, entitled Making Do, discussed this artist's experiences of ways that his culture has adapted to changing Western society, but kept its strong traditions nonetheless. Another, Insiders and Outsiders: Contending Portraits of American Indians, presented both native and Western portraits to discuss problematic constructions of the noble savage. Around these, the displays worked hard to show the variation in different tribes' skills and lifestyles in conversation with their environment. A prominent empty mount in one case was used to discuss modern processes of repatriation. A small number of dioramas and reconstructed living spaces give a real sense of ongoing practice and pride in their traditions.
DMNS also has beautiful displays of gems and minerals, dinosaur skeletons (including a view into the busy preparation labs), expedition health and more. But I needed no more to come out with a clear feeling that we should all hail the diorama!
