All sorts of oddities in the current exhibition at the Wellcome Collection; a stuffed badger curled in the corner without explanation, video of Ming the tiger who lived in a New York apartment, the bill of a platypus ripped off in disbelief, diagrams of a dinner held in a Crystal Palace dinosaur, a 3D printed extinct lion's skull, various taxidermy efforts and dioramas.
I could go on, and maybe I should, because there were lots of lists, catalogues, and encyclopedias. The first edition of Carl Linnaeus' aesthetically pleasing Systema Natura was on display.
Also lots of lovely old illustrations and artefacts throughout to pore over.
A video installation of a modern fable narrated by an endangered amazon parrot, connecting the Big Bang, Om, the Great Silence and man's search for intelligent life in outer space via the Arecibo Observatory summed up the exhibition. Both were oddly profound, poetic, intriguing and inspiring.
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