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R.2003 Temnodontosaurus Platydon Collected 1832 Natural History Museum, London Photographed 2018
Exhibition
Dragons & Snakestones
9 Mar 2018 – 24 May 2018
Event times
April to October 29th
Monday – Saturday: 10am – 5pm and Sunday 10am – 4pm
October 30th to March
Wednesday – Sunday: 10am – 4pm
Cost of entry
Museum Admission Prices
Adult: £4.95
Children under 18: Free
Concession (over 60): £4.45
Student: £2.50 (please show student card)
Lyme Regis Museum
Address
- Bridge Street
- Lyme Regis
England - DT7 3QA
- United Kingdom
Dragons & Snakestones is a long term photographic project about Mary Anning ‘the most important unsung collecting force in the history of paleontology’.
The exhibition is at Lyme Regis Museum on the site of Mary’s former home. It runs until Thursday 24th May, the week of her 219th birthday.
About
Dragons & Snakestones
Mary Anning, born 1799, was a fossil hunter and palaeontologist from Lyme Regis, UK. Her discoveries of prehistoric sea creatures contributed to the identification and classification of a wide range of marine life. As a woman born to a poor family, she was denied fellowship of the scientific communities of the day and her work was often credited to the men that dominated the field.
In recent years her story has become well-known, particularly around the broader historic social injustices that her case highlights, yet information and evidence about her is fragmentary; a few letters, a couple of notebooks and a range of records written by those that knew or encountered her.
During the research phase of this project I initially envisaged it to be a documentary work, looking at her legacy and the people she has influenced, those inspired by the underdog story, the ‘poor ignorant girl’[1] finding herself in the company of the foremost men of science. Yet whilst photographing her original specimens, housed in collections and museums throughout the UK, I began looking for a critical distance to record from; looking for traces of her hand; scratchings from her pick; marks from her pen.
With movies being commissioned[2], novels and plays of her life being published, and her inclusion in the national curriculum I felt I needed to find a different way of telling her story, seeking fragments of evidence of her presence, intimate, physical marks left behind by a remarkable woman.
[1] Lady Sylvester’s ‘Tour Through Devonshire’ (1824)
[2] ‘Mary Anning & The Dinosaur Hunters’, due for release 2018
