Exhibitions and Events at Manchester Museum
September 2014
Permanent collection

Manchester Museum is home to an array of treasures from the natural world and the many cultures it is home to. Highlights include a T.rex and fossils of other pre-historic creatures, ancient Egyptian artefacts and live amphibians and reptiles.
 
Exhibitions
All exhibitions at Manchester Museum are FREE.

Whitworth Park: Pleasure, Play and Politics
Until 5 October 2014

This exhibition will examine and explore how the role of Manchester’s Whitworth Park has changed over time. The displays are the result of a local archaeology project and the myriad of objects reflect the important role that the park has played for the local community over the years. Whitworth Park: Pleasure, Play and Politics will appeal to those with an interest in social and local history and reveal some surprising secrets about this popular city park.

Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Cities@Manchester, The Robert Kiln Charitable Trust, the Council for British Archaeology and Council for British Archaeology North West.

See here for our preview of the Whitworth Park: Pleasure, Play and Politics exhibition.
 
Family events and activities:
Baby Explorers
Tues 2, 16 & 30 Sep, 10.30-11.15am, 11.30am-12.15pm & 1-1.45pm.

Book on 0161 275 2648 (Bookings will be taken a week in advance from 2pm), free Sensory play and interactive story sessions for babies who aren’t walking yet. Every other Tuesday (except half term school holidays when there are drop-in sensory play sessions).

Magic Carpet
Fri 26 Sep, 10.30-11.30 & 11.30am-12.30pm
Book on 0161 275 2648 (from a week before), free, under 5s and their families/carers

Story making and activity sessions. For toddlers up to 5yrs and their families/carers

(Young babies welcome with older siblings)
 
Big Saturday: Discover the Pacific
Sat 27 Sep, 11am-4pm
Drop-in, free, all ages

A day of discovery and exploration for all ages. Inspired by the Museum’s Living Cultures collection, September’s Big Saturday will take you to the South Pacific. Make your own Hawaiian flower lei to wear as you explore the Museum and learn about the fascinating cultures and diverse environments of the Pacific.

Discovery Centre
Sats & Suns, 11am-4pm
Drop-in, free, all ages

Drop into the Discovery Centre for drawing and other art activities inspired by the Museum’s collection and pick up one of the Museum’s free activity sheets.

Hands-on
Drop-in, free, all ages

Throughout the week visit one of the Museum’s handling tables and get hands-on with objects from the collection, such as an Alexander the Great coin, an urban fox and an ancient Egyptian scarab beetle.

Talks, tours and workshops for adults:
English Corner
Tues 2 Sep, 1–2.30pm
Drop-in, free, adults

Free English conversation classes using the Museum’s collection as inspiration for discussion.

Collection Bites: Tai Chi Animal Influences
Wed 3 Sep, 1.05-2pm
Book on 0161 275 2648 or museum@manchester.ac.uk , free, adults

Join Colin Hughes as he explores this ancient Chinese health and martial art and its influences from the Animal Kingdom. Expect to try some gentle Tai Chi moves as Colin explains how animals as diverse as a silkworm, snake, squid and stork, bear, tiger and dragon have influenced how Tai Chi has developed, and is now practiced primarily as an exercise for health. Ancient masters observed how animals moved and mimicked aspects of their form and movement as they developed the graceful exercise and fighting forms that we now know as Tai Chi.

After Hours: Oxjam Take Over
Thurs 4 Sep, 5.30-9pm
Drop-in, free, adults

Join the Museums as it teams up with Oxjam for an eclectic evening exploring how music plays an integral part in cultures around the world and can help galvanise the fight against global poverty.

There will be objects on show from the Living Cultures collection, craft activities, talks and film showings. Later Oxjam will take over the stunning Living Worlds gallery to showcase local musicians in the run up to their annual Northern Quarter fundraising festival (4 and 5 October) for Oxfam.

The Poetry School at Manchester Museum
Sat 6 Sep & Sat 1 Nov, 10.30am-4.30pm
Book online at www.poetryschool.com or call 0207 582 1679, £138, £132 (60+), £110 (concs) for both sessions, open to all

A first for the Poetry School in Manchester! In collaboration with Manchester Museum, prize-winning poet Helen Mort offers some guided writing suggestions and poem feedback inspired by access to the Museum’s galleries and displays. Its collections range from archery, archaeology, botany, Egyptology and entomology to ethnography, mineralogy, palaeontology, numismatics and zoology, as well as unusual live specimens in the aquarium and vivarium. Helen will show you poems and set you writing tasks based around two themes – conflict and co-operation, and mysteries. Anna Bunney from the Museum will bring out Museum Comes to You object boxes so you get close up access to key objects and exhibits, and there will be a mixture of guided and free writing time in the Museum and its galleries. Students who wish to will be able to publish their Museum poems on the Poetry School’s social network, CAMPUS.
 
In The Footsteps of Alexander the Great: a fresh look at an epic
Mon 15 Sep, 6-7.30pm

Book on 0161 275 2648 or museum@manchester.ac.uk, free, adults

In this talk, Professor Michael Wood will look again at the story of Alexander the Great, whose amazing journeys of conquest he re-traced in 1998. He will update the story with new material from the currently beleaguered areas of Syria and Northern Iraq, and illustrate his talk with stunning pictures of the regions Alexander visited and with clips from his documentary series.

World War 1 and China: the Chinese Labour Corps in France
Wed 24 Sep, 1-2pm
Drop-in, free, adults

Dr. Jenny Clegg is a Senior Lecturer at the University for Central Lancashire and her specialist research mainly focuses on China’s development and its implications for the world order.
2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War One, a war which significantly reshaped the world in the 20th century.  China’s involvement, and the profound impact this was to have in the subsequent unfolding of its history of revolution and war, is one, however, that receives little attention in the West. This lecture aims to explore this wartime encounter between China and the West, focusing on the much neglected part played by Chinese Labour Corps at the Western front. Recruited by the British and French Armies to help alleviate acute shortages in manpower, this workforce numbered some 140,000 men by the time of the Armistice of 1918. What were the circumstances which brought these workers to France? And what of their experiences in a foreign land and the knowledge of the West that they brought back when they were repatriated? What influences did these have in the shaping of China’s emerging national consciousness, and its search for a distinctive modernity?

Urban Naturalist: Weather
Sat 27 Sep, 2-4pm
Book on 0161 275 2648 or museum@manchester.ac.uk, £3, adults

Join Michael Flynn to find out more about the weather station that was once in Whitworth Park and to learn more about the current weather recording undertaken by the University of Manchester.

Wonderstruck Singing Workshop

Sat 27 & Sun 28 Sep, 1.30-4.30pm
Drop-in, free, adults

Would you like to perform in Manchester Museum as part of a remarkable Weekend of Wonder? They are looking for keen singers to participate in Wonderstruck, an exciting large-scale performance taking place over the weekend of 15-16 November 2014.

Created by Daniel Bye, Sarah Punshon and Boff Whalley, and inspired by the Museum’s collections, Wonderstruck will combine text, movement and song to create a weekend of wonderful surprises for Museum visitors.

The Museum is putting together a special choir of volunteer singers to take part, with original songs composed especially for them by Boff Whalley, formerly of pop-punk-folk band Chumbawamba. Are you happy to sing a capella?  Interested in trying something a bit different? Available for some evening and weekend rehearsals in November?

Come along to this introductory workshop to meet Dan, Sarah and Boff, and find out more. All keen singers welcome, male or female, old or young.  You don’t need to be able to read music, you don’t need to be an opera singer: if you like to sing, they’d like to meet you.

Taster tours

Every Wed & Thurs, 1pm
Drop-in (no need to book), free, meet at the Information Desk (Floor G)

Come and the Visitor Services Assistants for a tour and learn more about some of the fascinating objects on display at the Museum. Tours are drop-in and focus on different aspects of the Museum and its collections each time.

Vivarium Tours
Every Thurs, 12pm
Book on 0161 275 2648, free

Take a tour of one of the most popular and distinctive galleries at Manchester Museum. Explore the comprehensive collection of live reptiles and understand how the Museum is taking a leading role in the conservation of some of the world’s most endangered amphibians.


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