Written by Olivia Beavers, National Museums Liverpool, World Museum & Sonal Mistry, Freelance Scientific Illustrator.

Just over a year ago, Sonal approached me with a request to access the vertebrate zoology collection for her Master’s thesis, which explored scientific illustration through natural science specimens. Collaborating with Sonal has helped the vertebrate zoology department to address colonial legacies and provide more context to the collections through thoughtful scientific illustration.

Olivia – World Museum

World Museum’s vertebrate zoology collection has a historic relationship between artists and specimens. Edward Lear and John Gould were just two of many illustrators who sketched and painted specimens within the 13^th Earl of Derby’s zoology collection.

With so many specimens stored behind the scenes and many untold stories of collectors and colonial legacies to be explored, curators are often considering new ways to get this information across to the public. Sonal contacted the museum as a Masters illustration student asking to collaborate with the vertebrate zoology department for her thesis. I supervised Sonal’s Master’s illustration thesis project, where she produced scientific illustrations to help improve the interpretation of vertebrate zoology specimens on display. After an initial walk around the gallery with Sonal, I handed out some questionnaires to gain a sense of the public’s opinions of the information that was already available. Sonal and I went through the different illustration styles and worked through which styles would be best suited to our audience for each topic. One of the recurring points that we noticed from the questionnaires was a plea for more information for older visitors and more colour.

I formed a list of key goals from the museum’s side that could be achieved in a short timeframe:

• Use illustrations to improve the interpretation for specimens in the Clore Natural History Centre
• Use illustrations to introduce colonial legacies and colonial activities associated with the collection
• Use illustrations to provide more information for adults as well as children
• Illustrate various preservation techniques on display, to help visitors to understand them further

Sonal – Freelance Scientific Illustrator

At this year’s NatSCA conference, I presented how scientific illustration can be used not simply as a visual aid, but as an interpretive tool that helps museums communicate complex and often uncomfortable histories embedded within natural history collections.

Working in collaboration with World Museum Liverpool, I explored how illustration can lower barriers to engagement, creating an accessible visual entry point into topics such as colonial legacies, biodiversity loss, and contested museum collections. Rather than relying solely on text, illustration encourages visitors to pause, question, and engage with the stories behind specimens.

A key aspect of this work was the intentional use of colour, contrast, and composition. These visual decisions were not purely aesthetic; they were used to reframe specimens within their wider historical and cultural contexts. By visually interpreting sensitive collections, including historic trophy specimens, illustration helped make difficult histories visible without relying on dense interpretation panels or defensive language. The object anchors the science, the illustration reframes the narrative, and the visitor fills the space between through curiosity and discussion.

This project reinforced that illustration is not about adding visuals to museum displays. It is about changing how museums communicate. Visual language has the power to slow people down, invite reflection, and open conversations that text alone can struggle to begin. By bridging scientific accuracy with thoughtful interpretation, illustration can help museums engage audiences with confidence while creating more inclusive, meaningful, and memorable experiences.

Illustration to aid interpretation

Sonal’s illustrations of the vertebrate zoology collection, particularly the lion cub in the spirit jar above, have really influenced how visitors and colleagues see a specimen. People want to know more about the specimen and its life and are generally more empathetic instead of seeing them only as ‘dead things’.

After the project with Sonal, World Museum’s Natural Science gallery went through a 4-month refresh. The team faced challenges with writing all the new gallery’s interpretation and labels in a rapid two-week timeframe. The project highlighted challenges surrounding how we introduce and explain what colonialism is; how we describe the people who were and still are affected by colonialism and how we make sure the terminology used is suitable for a ‘family-friendly’ audience – all within a tight 100 word limit.

Once the gallery reopened, Sonal and I spoke about how illustration could be included in future projects to help visitors of all ages understand complex topics like colonialism. Instead of trying to describe colonialism in 100 words, illustrations could have supported the text and provided more context than the word counts allowed.

The whole interpretation process opened doors for further discussion on what a ‘family friendly gallery’ means to us as an organisation. Including how we work with external and internal teams to produce natural science interpretation, without compromising the scientific content and important messaging on colonial legacies.

The Wild World refresh allowed several specimens and discussions to be introduced to the gallery for the first time. Some of these specimens, like the trophy heads, helped to support Sonal’s illustrations relating to colonial activities. We were able to focus on the history of game hunting and how we acquired some of the museum’s specimens. The illustrations helped to provide a visual to invite people to learn more about the specimens and colonial activities.

Challenging the secondary school curriculum

National Museums Liverpool was awarded a grant from the Art Fund for their Teacher Fellowship Programme with Teaching Fellow, Science Educator and Diversity Lead Aakhila Fayaz. Bethany Farey, Learning Producer for Primary and Secondary schools at National Museums Liverpool, has been working with Aakhila to co-create a framework for decolonising teaching practices alongside National Museum Liverpool’s curators and learning teams. The ongoing fellowship aims to provide a link between schools and National Museums Liverpool to help engage students and teachers with natural science specimens and develop an anti-colonial learning framework.

To develop visuals for this learning framework, Sonal was commissioned to illustrate natural science specimens selected to help with teaching decolonial narratives in schools and museum workshops. The illustrations will feature in physical workbooks as well as the Clore Natural History Centre at World Museum. Each specimen has ties to the secondary school curriculum with links to biology, chemistry, physics and maths. These case study specimens will prompt discussions about their origin, cultural significance, and provenance as well as how the museum acquired the specimen.

The science teachers at Archbishop Blanch Secondary School along with museum staff have already noticed how the students have engaged with this content. The students have been developing their critical thinking skills in a world of misinformation and disinformation about political and cultural tensions and divisions and how this has affected what is taught in the curriculum. They created and presented posters based on their own decolonial research on a topic of choice that related to science.

In a short time, the students have already grown in confidence in expressing their ideas and opinions. Especially when discussing whose knowledge and contributions have not been included or focused on in the past and the impact this has on communities not being able to see their histories and contributions to science celebrated.

Decolonising the education programmes at National Museums Liverpool and Archbishop Blanch Secondary School will help to create a more inclusive space where these histories are celebrated and taught.