Category: Behind the Scenes

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A Botanical Journey In Time

By Inese Veismane

I remember the exact moment I saw the message from the Museum of Natural History. I had just returned home from a trip, switched my phone back on after the flight, and there it was – waiting for me to jump into the unknown. It came at a time when my personal life was shifting in a difficult direction, and in an unexpected way, this project became something that held me steady.

My work usually lives in the botanical world – delicate flowers, soft forms and colours, artsy details ­– so stepping into a space shaped by scientific accuracy and unfamiliar subjects felt like entering a new landscape. This time, I was asked to create not only plants but organisms like worms, including the intricate and challenging Christmas tree worms.

The commission began in 2023, and from the very start, it was clear that this would be a different kind of creative process. Instead of observing a living plant or working from my own references, I was guided by scientific material provided by the museum. There was a responsibility to honour not just the visual beauty of each subject but also its structure, proportions, dimensions, and defining characteristics.

I work with air-dry clay, building each form slowly by hand. My process is intuitive but also very attentive – I spend time studying botanical forms and shapes and then transforming that into something tangible. With these models, I had to balance that intuitive, artistic approach with careful observation. It became a dialogue between art and science.

Working on the early plants became one of the most interesting parts of the project. Recreating species like Asteroxylon mackiei, Rhynia, and Cooksonia felt like reaching into a distant past. These are plants that no longer exist, known only through scientific study and careful reconstruction. There was something deeply humbling in shaping them by hand – giving form to something that once lived hundreds of millions of years ago. It felt like a journey back in time. I had to rely entirely on references and guidance while still allowing the forms to come alive through my own interpretation.

One of the most meaningful parts of this creative process has been witnessing the transformation of each piece – from a simple beginning to something that holds presence and detail. I also find importance in sharing these stages on my social media. It creates a sense of continuity – an archive of the work that can be returned to over time.

Looking back, this experience has expanded the way I see my work. It reminded me that even when we step outside of what feels familiar, the essence of creating remains the same: to pay attention, to be patient, and to trust that something will slowly take shape.

There is also something special in knowing that these handmade models will live within the Museum and become a part of a much larger story – held in a space where art and science meet.

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See more of Inese’s work at: www.instagram.com/cooleblumen/

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Presenting ‘Life, As We Know It’ 

What a ride! It’s been about seven years in the making, but we have just put the finishing touches to our major redisplay project – Life, as we know it – which fully opened last week. If you haven’t been to the Museum in a while, now is a great time to come. 

I have been lucky enough to have worked on this project from the very beginning, but the achievement is that of many, many people across the Museum and beyond. Over the coming weeks we are going to share, on this blog, stories from some of the skilled people who made it happen: model-makers, artists, scientists, set-builders, designers, animators, conservators – the list goes on and on. 

The video above gives a taster of all this. For those of us involved, it is also a nice trip down memory lane. How did we find and pin hundreds of arthropods in rings of concentric size, all presided over by a gigantic Japanese Spider Crab? Whose idea was it to suspend an articulated dinosaur upside down, sinking to its final resting place? 

To be able to step back now and see all the new displays together is a real treat. Between them, the 48 new showcases, containing 24 new displays, show us specimen-led examples of how the natural world works, taking in big ideas in evolution, ecosystems, biodiversity, and the history of the planet. 

Thanks to everyone who has worked on what is the biggest single redisplay in the Museum’s 165-year history. We hope you enjoy it as much as we have! 

By Scott Billings, Life, As We Know It Redisplay Project Manager

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‘Deadly Six’ deinstall

Bethany Milne from the Museum’s Visitor Experience team has spent some time working alongside the Exhibitions team to deinstall a temporary art exhibition. She has reflected on the day – what she enjoyed and what she learnt along the way.

The deinstall of the Museum’s Deadly Six art installation is my first introduction into the world of exhibitions and an exciting one to start with. I have seen the display since it was first installed in September 2024 and I began working at the museum, watching it on my patrols of the court to make sure it stays intact and safe from all the little hands that pass through our doors every day. I didn’t imagine what it would be like to touch them myself until I found out I had the opportunity to join the team in taking them down.

On September 8th I came into the museum at 8:30am to shadow the exhibitions team as a development day. Most of the staff and contractors were already there and so I started by talking to the Head of Exhibitions, Rachel, about what needed to be done. She showed me her schedule of the day, starting at 8am, going through to 5pm, in which we would derig all the sculptures and get them set up safely out of the public areas and into storage. After, I helped set up hoarding to keep the aisle where the work was being done secluded, as the museum would be open to the public as usual around us. This aspect was an interesting learning opportunity for me as I have no earlier experience with the manual labour aspect of the work, but I enjoyed being hands-on.

As I was doing this, the team from Outback Rigging worked on carefully lowering the suspended works to the ground and to our surprise; the take down was ahead of schedule. Most of them were removed by the middle of the day and these ones were simple to move. This was interesting to me as they seem so delicate, being large structures made of woven willow, but they proved sturdier than I thought. However, some were more difficult to take down than others, including the COVID sculpture. This was the most difficult to get down to the storage space, due to its intricate structure and its large size. Too wide to take down the stairs we usually use, Rachel organized with the Pitt Rivers to take it through their door, along the road and back into the Museum of Natural History through another door! What made this procedure more complicated was the sculpture itself, as its round construction meant there were no handholds. Luckily, the artist Issy Wilkes created some by looping some zip ties through the metal frame and, learning from the setup of the exhibition, used foam sheets to wrap around these painful to hold ties, to make the journey even easier. I felt it was an extremely rewarding process when we were finally able to put it down, as it required a lot of teamwork and shimmying about corridors to make it – I was very relieved we were able to keep it in one piece.

As the day went on and the sculptures were down and put away safely, I began to do smaller, but equally important tasks. The works themselves weren’t the only part of the exhibition, so I aided in removing the signage that was in the aisle that explained the meaning of each part. We also moved these down to the storage room, out of the way of the surrounding visitors and I began the task of removing the labels from inside. Another small step was vacuuming the sculptures. Despite regular conservation cleaning, hanging up in the court for so long had meant they had accumulated a lot of dust, which had to be cleaned out before they moved to their next home. These tasks were ones I wouldn‘t have thought of before the experience, but I realise that the smaller aspects are just as important as the larger ones when it comes to taking care of the exhibitions. It is our job to not only display the works as best we can, honouring their artistic intent and presenting to the audience in a way they understand, but this experience showed me how important the after care is, ensuring that they are well maintained to carry on their purpose and that the museum is returned to its original state.