The Nature of Collections: How Museums Inspire Our Connection to the Natural World

This was the theme for the NatSCA conference, held this week at the Silk Mill and Derby Museum and Art Gallery (21 – 22 April 2016), and the timing could not have been better, as I have been organising a ‘Spring Flower Power’ event at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG). With support from the staff and Bristol Naturalists Society we had a really great day, teaching the public about what is in flower at this time of year. I was also able to network with a group and a region I am wholly unfamiliar with, having worked and lived in Cardiff for many years.

The Flower Identification table at Bristol Museum (© Bristol Culture BMAG)

Flowers have not been in the main hall for many years now, and they really had an impact on the staff and public. Bringing the outdoors in can be inspiring, and it is something museums have been doing for decades. I was sent the picture below by the Bristol Naturalists Society (BNS). It shows Ivor Evans, a keen and well established botanist, admiring the table he helped set up with Ida Roper back in pre-war Bristol, still going strong in the 1960s.

Ivor Evans at Bristol Musuem during the 1960s with the Flower table he helped develop (© Bristol Naturalist Society)

Victoria Purewal
Senior Curator of Natural Sciences, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
NatSCA Conservation Representative