Coral: Something Rich and Strange is a visually spectacular temporary exhibition launching at Manchester Museum this autumn. This major show will juxtapose historic and contemporary art, new commissions and natural history specimens and explore the enduring fascination with coral as a material and inspiration for artists, cultures and societies, from antiquity to the present day.

The displays will include a plethora of fascinating and beautiful objects, telling a story about biodiversity and the importance of marine environments. They will bring attention to coral’s fascinating natural, scientific characteristics; the diversity of its shapes and patterns; its uses in different cultures and contexts; and the urgency of marine habitat protection. Coral will be seen in a new light, as an organism, material and symbol bridging and blurring many fields and disciplines.

Natural history specimens from the Museum’s zoology collection, fossils, glass models of marine invertebrates, and scientific illustrations will be seen alongside cultural artefacts (charms, talismans, funerary objects, rosaries, netsuke and jewellery ‘curiosities’). Paintings, prints, textiles and objects from the collections of Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery and the V&A will also be on display alongside artworks from 15 national and 3 international institutions.

Dr Nick Merriman, Director of Manchester Museum said: “According to a recent authoritative report, half of the world's coral reefs have been destroyed in the last 30 years, and if we do not take action immediately to reverse this decline, we will see all of them disappear before the end of the century. This exhibition is timely by showing the beauty of coral, both in nature and in the ways it has been used artistically, and what we risk losing if we stand by while it is destroyed”.

The exhibition is curated by Dr Marion Endt-Jones, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in Art History and Visual Studies, University of Manchester. She explained how the exhibition is the culmination of a three year project: “Manchester Museum, as a multi-disciplinary university museum, presented itself as an ideal venue for giving a public outlet to my research on the cultural history of coral as an organism, material and symbol. The exhibition hopes to illustrate what rich and diverse cultural tradition we put at risk by polluting, overfishing and acidifying the world’s oceans.”

The exhibition will also include commissions of new works from the internationally renowned artist Mark Dion and the Lancashire-based textile artist Karen Casper, as well as a large-scale community engagement project, Manchester’s very own Crochet Coral Reef as part of the worldwide Crochet Coral Reef project created by the Institute For Figuring.

A beautifully illustrated book, Coral: Something Rich and Strange, accompanies the exhibition, containing an essay on coral in art and nature, an interview with the artist Gemma Anderson and several object stories by experts from different disciplines, ranging from art history and archaeology to history of science and biology, published by Liverpool University Press.

The exhibition is supported by Arts Council England and The Granada Foundation.

Manchester Museum
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL United Kingdom
Ph. +44 (0)16 12752648
museum@manchester.ac.uk
www.manchester.ac.uk/museum

Opening hours
Daily from 10am to 5pm

Related images

  • 1. Italian Girl with necklace, 1854 – 84, Susan Isabel Dacre Manchester City Galleries
  • 2. Sea fan (Gorgonia albicans), Manchester Museum, Zoology collection
  • 3. Joli Coeur, 1867, Dante Gabriel Rossetti Manchester City Galleries
  • 4. & 6. Ventalina, Embroidered ‘Coral’ Fan, 2013 Karen Casper, Photography: Ian McManus, Textile Designer and Styling: Karen Casper, MUA: Allison Willcox, Hair: Laura Southworth @ Scarlet Hair Studio, Model: Chloe Grundy @ Nemesis Model Agency
  • 5. Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, Glass models of sea anemones, late 19th century, Manchester Museum, Zoology collection