Bath Artists Cook Up Something Special For Darwin's 200th Birthday
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Bath art group Eak-Art are combining the culinary and visual arts in a special birthday cake for the BRLSI’s celebration of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday on February 12th. The event coincides with the opening of the BRLSI’s Mr Darwin’s Fishes exhibition, and the artists say the cake will continue the fishy theme, although to what extent isn’t known as the cake’s recipe is a closely-guarded secret.
Darwin’s Fishes is a multimedia exhibition which investigates the methods Charles Darwin used to collect fish specimens on the Beagle voyage, and how fellow-naturalist Leonard Jenyns studied them for publication in Zoology of the Beagle.
Jenyns described the fish specimens on Darwin’s return to England and named a number of new species from them. These specimens, now preserved in spirits at in the Natural History Museum, London, are too fragile (and precious) to make the journey to Bath, but the BRLSI’s Matt Williams and Jude Harris teamed up with NHM Fish Curator Oliver Crimmen and film maker Paul Philip Green to film them. The result will form the centrepiece of the exhibition, accompanied by readings from Darwin’s diaries and letters and Jenyns’ notes.
Darwin’s Fishes will be opened by Professor Daniel Pauly, Professor of Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, who will then give a lecture entitled From Darwin’s Fishes to Jenyns’ Fishes - Ichthyology and the Voyage of the Beagle’
Dr Pauly, one of the best known fisheries scientists in the world, is particularly outspoken about global fishing practice, dedicated to spreading the word that fish stocks are plummeting around the world. Unchecked, he says, the fishing industry will leave little in the seas but harvests of what he calls 'bait and worse', the bottom levels of the marine food web like sea cucumbers and jellyfish. ''No, you don't need to worry about these problems,'' he says, ''as long as your children like plankton stew.''
The evening’s events start at 7pm - get there early if you want some cake!
Darwin’s Fishes is a multimedia exhibition which investigates the methods Charles Darwin used to collect fish specimens on the Beagle voyage, and how fellow-
Jenyns described the fish specimens on Darwin’s return to England and named a number of new species from them. These specimens, now preserved in spirits at in the Natural History Museum, London, are too fragile (and precious) to make the journey to Bath, but the BRLSI’s Matt Williams and Jude Harris teamed up with NHM Fish Curator Oliver Crimmen and film maker Paul Philip Green to film them. The result will form the centrepiece of the exhibition, accompanied by readings from Darwin’s diaries and letters and Jenyns’ notes.
Darwin’s Fishes will be opened by Professor Daniel Pauly, Professor of Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, who will then give a lecture entitled From Darwin’s Fishes to Jenyns’ Fishes -
Dr Pauly, one of the best known fisheries scientists in the world, is particularly outspoken about global fishing practice, dedicated to spreading the word that fish stocks are plummeting around the world. Unchecked, he says, the fishing industry will leave little in the seas but harvests of what he calls 'bait and worse', the bottom levels of the marine food web like sea cucumbers and jellyfish. ''No, you don't need to worry about these problems,'' he says, ''as long as your children like plankton stew.''
The evening’s events start at 7pm -
Fish kindly provided by FishWorks, Green St, Bath.