Museum Critique Brief

Natural History Museum Dinosaur ExhibitionNatural History Museum Earth’s Beginnings (Exhibition Entrance)Science Museum

Aimee K. Pope

As traipsing round galleries stuffed with pictures on a wall tends to bore the life out of me, I decided to go to the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum, both of which have several exhibitions to choose from. Even then I found that the exhibitions within these two museum’s contain lots and lots of information, some of which grabbed my attention in accordance with my personal interest more than others.

To this effect, I have decided to write this along with a visual piece of work. I visited the Cosmos section inside the Science Museum and found it very informative and impressive. It wasn’t as interactive as the Earth’s Beginnings exhibition in the Natural History Museum but the projected globe inside the Cosmos exhibition in the Science Museum was very interesting.

In the Earth’s Beginning’s (Exhibition Entrance) section, they had impressive displays that were very interactive including a room that simulated what happened to a building when a earthquake hit. What disappointed me most about this was that it felt as if I was just on a train and not experience an earthquake. I particularly liked the graphics that they used to represent the planets in the solar system along with facts such as Saturn would float in water.

I also visited the Dinosaur exhibition in the main part of the Natural History Museum. I have always had a passion for dinosaurs since I was very young and knew I really wanted to incorporate them into my work. I struck me after seeing the animatronic Tyrannosaur that I could mix dinosaurs with the Solar System. I have equated planet size to the length of the dinosaur by a rough estimate. I tried to use dinosaurs that weren’t as well known as the usual favourites such as Brachiosaurus or Allosaurus.

the idea

From left to right

Sun.Velociraptor - 6 feet - Mercury 3031 milesGallimimus - 13 feet - Venus 7521 milesCryolophosaurus - 23-36 feet - Earth 7926 milesStygimoloch - 8 feet - Mars 4222 milesBrachiosaurus - 75 feet - Jupiter 88,700 milesTyrannosaurus - 50 feet - Saturn 74,898 milesIguanodon - 30 feet - Neptune 30,775 milesAllosaurus - 40 feet - Uranus 31,690 miles

The original thought in my head was a mobile either with digital media or by using black card and string/wire like how they do it with mobiles of the solar system.