Manchester Blog Awards

The Manchester Hermit blog was recently shortlisted fro the Manchester Blog Awards, so myself and a few others went along on Wednesday evening to find out if we’d won… drum roll… we didn’t win, but we got runners up in the Best Arts and Culture category. Pretty good really and all credit to the Hermit (Ansuman Biswas).

The Manchester Blog Awards

A good night was had by all and it highlighted some really great writing going on in Manchester. The overall winner was a blog called Lost in Manchester which is a really nice read if you have a minute.

The Hermit is off for his holidays, just like the rest of us

The Hermit has now finished his residency at the museum, but he is still keeping up with the discussions on his blog if you want to contribute. The project has been a great sucess, with over 32,000 visits to his blog from around the world. The debate has been heated and has been a great opportunity to remind everyone how amazing our collection is here in Manchester.

I’m off for a few weeks after this weekend, but have got some great visits planned for next week. I’m off to Amsterdam to see the Anne Frank Museum and will visit Naturalis in Leiden.

I’ll let you know how I get on when I get back. Otherwise, I hope to see you this Saturday at the Nature Discovery Day. Come and explore our new gallery and our giant cave!

I love working at the museum!

Most of my time is taken up with preparing for the Manchester Hermit at the moment. We don’t want to spoil the fun for when he is in the tower, so I can’t really talk about it much at the moment, other than to say it should be really exciting!

Palaeo-tastic!

Louise Sutherland and I managed to squeeze in a great meeting with a teacher from Greenhead College, Huddersfield about the new sessions we are developing for A-Level geology students. We are going to develop some new A2 sessions to run alongside the AS sessions we have already run. We intend to develop sessions on dinosaur trackways and Quaternary climate change. If you want to book any of these sessions for the autumn go to our post 16 learning page.

The Manchester Hermit is announced!

The Manchester Hermit has been announced as Ansuman Biswas, a London based live artist.

Ansuman has worked on a range of exciting projects around the world, such as living with minstrels in India, touring with Bjork and being an artist in residence at the Russian Space Agency.

Whilst in the museum’s tower Ansuman will represent a kind of species of memory. The museum functions in human culture as memory functions within the individual human body, or as the human species functions within the biosphere. He will meditate on the on the wider issues affecting the planet especially extinction. The museum’s collection of over 4 million objects will play a vital role in his work and he will provoke debate about how we value these objects.

Throughout the hermitage, this ‘ultimate exhibit’ will be able to be examined via a webcam and will invite comment on his blog.

See Ansuman’s interviews on Channel 4 News and The Guardian.

Happy new year exciting things to come

Happy new year everyone! It’s been good to have a break over Christmas, but the are some exciting things to come here at the museum.

The invertebrate Palaeontoogy store

The first week back has been busy sending out information for potential hermits which will be taking up residence in the museum in the summer. Other things we are preparing for are a biodiversity project for the web, which will be launched in the summer; redisplaying the space where the Plesiosaurs are on the gallery and preparing for our Darwin exhibition in October.

Exciting times to come, watch this space!

Would you like to be a museum hermit?

The Manchester Museum is advertising for a hermit to live in its Gothic tower for 6-8 weeks in the Summer of 2009.

Hogwarts or is it the museum?

We are looking for an inspirational  and quirky artist who will bring the tower to life through their work. Anyone with an arts or performance background can apply.

The hermit will have access to the collection of 4.5 million objects, the staff and the galleries prior to their isolation. They will be encouraged  to communicate with the outside world through a variety of means, so that the wider world can be involved in the project.

If you would like to apply to be the hermit or know of anyone who would, please leave a comment below and I can send you the brief.

I’ll keep you updated as it should be one of the most exciting an fun things to happen at the museum in years!

Happy Christmas!

Please note: We are not taking any more applications, thanks.