First time out

 

Five objects that have never been displayed before. Each treasure from a museum collection tells a story that hasn’t been told until now. But which story?

Objects tell us about past environments, cultures, innovations and events. But they tell different stories depending on your perspective. What happens when you take something from one museum and ask experts from other museums to write the story?

First Time Out is a collaboration between five London museums:

•  Horniman Museum – anthropological objects and musical instruments
•  Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew – plant diversity, conservation and sustainable use
•  Natural History Museum – the science of nature
•  Science Museum – making sense of the science that shapes our lives
•  Wellcome Collection – the art and science of the human condition

Each object is on display at each institution for six weeks. View the pages below to find out where and when to see them. How would you interpret the lemur skull, the Japanese wood panel or the psychologist’s toys?

 

On display

‘Livingstone’ Medicine Chest

Algot Lange, the Swedish-American explorer, took this medicine chest on his adventures in the Amazon rainforest in 1911.

 
Painted wooden panel of Asian Pear, Japan

Made from the wood and bark of the trees they pictured, the panel depicts a plant which is important in Japanese culture.

 
Dance Paddle, Easter Island (Rapa Nui)

It might look like it should belong in a boat but this paddle was in fact was used within ritual dances on Easter Island.

 
Cranium and mandible of a giant lemur

The size of a gorilla, the giant lemur is one of at least 17 species of lemur gone extinct in Madagascar.

 
‘World’ created from toys in a tray of sand

Margaret Lowenfeld, a pioneering child psychologist, used these toys as part of her ‘world technique’, to help troubled children express their emotions.