Time: Listed in the below table
Venue: Hong-gah Museum (11F, No. 166, Daye Road, Beitou District, Taipei. MRT: Qiyan Station)
About the Project
How nature is presented in natural history museums can be regarded as a concrete visual representation of the relationship between humans and nature. The display modes of natural history museums are by no means universal nor objective. Exhibition displays are embedded with the preconceptions and societal prejudices that prevailed at the time of their conception. As Donna Haraway critiqued in her 1984 text “Teddy Bear Patriarchy”, nature is in fact a technology constructed by social practice.
This series, consisting of screenings, reading groups and workshops, revolves around a case study that contrasts the renovation of dinosaur displays in two natural science/history museums. In 1995, the Fossil Halls of the American Museum of Natural History in New York were reopened, exhibiting a large number of dinosaur fossil replicas, while in 2004, the Life Science Hall of the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung was transformed into a display of robotic dinosaurs. Does the different choice in technological media for these exhibitions reflect the contrasts in methods of interpretation and readings of scientific knowledge between the two regions? How do relationships between humans and non-humans manifest through different modes of display in varying political and social-economic networks? How should we think about the decolonization of the natural history museum in the context of a timescale beyond human existence (“deep time”)?
This event series aims to bring together several key feminist texts for group reading, film screenings and workshops, to slowly read, articulate and attend to the significance of (displaying) dinosaurs.
Schedule
Registration
There are five sessions in this series. The first session, Session #1 – Donna Haraway, is open to the public, but due to COVID-19 prevention measures, pre-registration is still required and audience places are limited to 50. A registration confirmation notice will be sent to you within 3 days of filling out the registration form. A waiting list will only be open on-site on the day of the session.
Registration for the first session: https://forms.gle/w1EA6SAmPxV3qkAt6
The second to fifth session is registration only. The number limit is 15 people and deposit for NTD. 1000. Participants without absence will collect deposit back at the fifth session. Please sign up through the link below and wire deposit to the account below:
Beneficiary: 介面媒體藝術有限公司
Account No: 822 中國信託 226540028986
Successful registration will be notified via E-mail.
Sign up for the second to fifth sessions: https://forms.gle/5DTmiRZi5T23vjo19
All events in this series will be conducted in Mandarin Chinese.
Organizers: Hong-gah Museum, Screen Ltd.
Acknowledgements: This project is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture.
Image Credit: Fabrizio Terranova, Still from Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival, 82’, 2016, Image courtesy Icarus Films.
