Natural Beauty in Unnatural Settings

By Grant Misse

One of the great perks of taking a trip, or holiday if you will, in London, is all of the free museums. These massive buildings are full of history, culture, and beauty. But whose history? Whose culture? And what beauty? One of the primary thoughts I had following my visit to The British Museum, was that there was not much British history found there at all. But no museum struck me more than the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. On and before our trip, we had many discussions about the acquisition of historical objects and their damaging uses in museum settings. At the back of the Oxford Museum of Natural History was the Pitt Rivers Museum, filled wall to wall with cultural artifacts, taken with or without the consent of the communities to which they belonged. One of the most egregious offenses to these communities was the broad groupings of their objects into display cases and all of the untold implications that came with these groupings. Calling one display the “Lutes of Asia” both oversimplifies the cultural role of the instruments being shown and groups them with a system that does not apply to the communities that created them. But I am not an Anthropology student, I am an Environmental Studies student, so I would like to examine the similar issues exhibited by these displays as they present themselves in the Oxford Museum of Natural History’s exhibits of the natural world. Just as the cultural objects shown in the Pitt Rivers museum are specific to certain communities and parts of the world, so are each of the species showcased in the Museum of Natural History. There are rows of beetles and ants pinned onto boards, a line of antlered animals standing in bony rows, and most dazzlingly, a rainbow of butterflies displayed in balls of color. In this single room, stands a greater level of biodiversity of fauna than is likely to exist in any other human landscape or most natural settings that border human civilization. But I don’t believe this rainbow of butterflies should exist as it does, nor should all of these insects be lined up in rows upon rows for their exoskeletons to be examined. And while it may occur to someone, yes, these colors go together, or all butterflies are butterflies, most of these species would never have encountered each other in their natural setting. It is estimated that there are 17,500 different species of butterflies, and only around 60 exist in the UK alone. The number of butterflies and colors shown in this image far outnumber the amount of species native to the country they are being displayed in. And in a museum as old as 1858, it is likely that many of these species have gone extinct in a world ravaged by colonial and capital expansion that have given way to anthropogenic climate change.

So the first step to repairing this extractive relationship to scientific processes is to address the issues and take action to avoid further damage. In social and cultural contexts, this can look like repatriation. But returning a long dead butterfly to the spaces it once flitted over is not the same. Instead, educate people on the importance of biodiversity and the factors that threaten it. One amazing thing about the Oxford Museum of Natural History is that it does talk about extinction, biodiversity loss, and climate change. But, where does one find these exhibits? Upstairs in stuffy walkways and in back rooms with no labels. So the next step can be as easy as properly labeling rooms and bringing these important topics to the more accessible and desirable spaces in the museum. I won’t pretend to have all of the answers though. I’m simply here to advocate that as we begin to sort out the confusing tricky issues of colonial acquisition of culturally important objects and their necessary repatriation, we should also examine our relationships with the natural world and how we treat our non-human neighbors in both natural and academic settings.

Most disappointing part of the trip?

My greatest disappointment was the Natural History Museum. It was almost entirely for children.

Most American or touristy thing that you did?

We attempted to split a check at a restaurant and had to do all of the math ourselves and just ended up overpaying when we probably should have used Venmo.

One thing you wish you had time for but didn’t?

I wish I had gone to Greenwich and the Canary Wharf