The tree elements came through our realisation that the building is on the site of the old botanic garden. There is a sense of overlaying history there - zoology and botany - and animals and plants have been very important within our work for the past 25 years.
- Artist Heather Ackroyd
The new-look David Attenborough Building opens its doors to the public for the first time next week for an art exhibition that celebrates the pioneering partnership between conservationists and the University of Cambridge.
The show features photographs of Museum Of Zoology specimens preserved in alcohol (termed “spirits”) partnered with tree saplings grown from seeds collected from the specimen’s natural habitat.
A second artwork, Seeing Red..Overdrawn, will be an interactive 23ft long, 10ft high printed list of more than 4,700 endangered species, and will be on display beside Stranded, a 19ft long crystal encrusted whale skeleton.
The artists behind them, Ackroyd & Harvey (Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey), are famous for their living artworks including 2007’s ‘FlyTower’ for which they grew seedling grass over part of London’s iconic National Theatre, and History Trees, ten living sculptures marking entrances to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Ackroyd says: “The tree elements came through our realisation that the building is on the site of the old botanic garden. There is a sense of overlaying history there - zoology and botany - and animals and plants have been very important within our work for the past 25 years.”
The exhibition is part of a drive to open up the University of Cambridge’s New Museums Site, where the David Attenborough Building is based, to the public, which will see three new public courtyards created over the next ten years.
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Image: A scaly anteater (pangolin) specimen from the Museum of Zoology collection
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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