I was chatting to a friend on Twitter about the strange things we’d seen and loved in small local museums. These museums are often a treasure trove of eclectic, unusual, and downright bonkers exhibits, and I thought it might be fun to run an occasional blog series about some of the ones I’ve seen.
First on the list, partly because it’s very local to me and partly because it must win hands down on peculiarity, is the dodo in Kendal museum.
This is (obviously) not a real bird, and not even a straightforward piece of taxidermy since the last of the species died out too long ago for any complete specimens to remain. So what did Kendal Museum do? Commission a taxidermy specialist, Carl Church, to make a reproduction dodo, as a key part of their ‘Learn From the Past’ exhibition about extinct species a few years ago.
The exhibition is no longer on, but the dodo remains as a potent symbol of all things dead and departed.
FIONA GLASS 