NEW YORK: New Natural History Museum exhibition provides considerable information about the creation and history of coral reefs, but fails to inspire
To be fair, it is the Natural History Museum. And that appears to dictate the whole approach to coral reefs which visitors to this new exhibition get: something that is focused entirely on natural history.
Undoubtedly, the museum has an impressive collection of historic reef specimens – with over 250 on display – including some species of coral collected over 100 years ago. These are accompanied by some of Charles Darwin’s own paperwork, such as an annotated map of the Caribbean, and an 1842 copy of The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, written before he turned his attention to On the Origin of Species.
However, there is a disappointing lack of dynamism and imagination throughout the exhibition, with reefs presented as locations from which static and uninspiring pieces of dead coral come from. Indeed, visitors who have never been to a real reef would be forgiven for coming away thinking of them as artefacts from the past, in a similar category to the dinosaur skeletons down the hall.
NEW YORK: New Natural History Museum exhibition provides considerable information about the creation and history of coral reefs, but fails to inspire
To be fair, it is the Natural History Museum. And that appears to dictate the whole approach to coral reefs which visitors to this new exhibition get: something that is focused entirely on natural history.
Undoubtedly, the museum has an impressive collection of historic reef specimens – with over 250 on display – including some species of coral collected over 100 years ago. These are accompanied by some of Charles Darwin’s own paperwork, such as an annotated map of the Caribbean, and an 1842 copy of The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, written before he turned his attention to On the Origin of Species.
However, there is a disappointing lack of dynamism and imagination throughout the exhibition, with reefs presented as locations from which static and uninspiring pieces of dead coral come from. Indeed, visitors who have never been to a real reef would be forgiven for coming away thinking of them as artefacts from the past, in a similar category to the dinosaur skeletons down the hall.
