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Stories

  • Article

How to play in a museum

Some museums create games for visitors to play. In others, if you’re creative and inquisitive, you can make up your own. Find out how a game can give you a different perspective on art and objects.

  • Article

The birth of the public museum

The first public museums evolved from wealthy collectors’ cabinets of curiosities and were quickly recognised as useful vehicles for culture.

  • Article

Disability, education and prejudice

In the 1960s and 1970s, thalidomide survivors had to fight for a proper education. If they weren’t brought up in institutions, they were often viewed as objects of curiosity, encountering verbal and sometimes physical abuse, both at school and in the world beyond.

  • Article

Homes for the hives of industry

By building workers’ villages, industry titans demonstrated both philanthropy and control. Employees’ health improved, while rulebooks told them how to live ideal lives.

All stories (72)

Images

  • Two groups of graphic figures dancing in circles around a heart and a condom; advertisement for the Vanguard Project, a research project aimed at educating young men on safe sex by the British Columbia Centre of Excellence in HIV/AIDS. Colour lithograph by John Ferrie, 1994.
  • Peking, Pechili province, China: a mission school. Photograph by John Thomson, 1869.
  • Peking, Pechili province, China: a mission school. Photograph by John Thomson, 1869.
  • The British Museum: working-class people attending a guided tour and looking at exhibits of English history in glass cases and on the walls. Etching by G. Cruikshank, 1843.
  • A concert hall. Watercolour and crayons by Tomasz Sitkowski, 1976.
  • A central circle with four penis-like extensions surrounded by numerous small circles and flower shapes in each corner; one of a series of Aboriginal posters entitled 'Everybody's Business' concerning 'Education about AIDS' commissioned by the Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health. Colour lithograph by Bronwyn Bancroft, 1992.
  • The emblematic figure of a man representing secularisation, technical innovation, educational reforms and liberal politics in the United Kingdom. Lithograph, ca. 1830.
  • The last moments of HRH the Prince Consort. Oil painting by Oakley under the pseudonym Le Port, ca. 1861.
  • The last moments of HRH the Prince Consort. Oil painting by Oakley under the pseudonym Le Port, ca. 1861.
  • A dancing demonstration in a school, attended by the pupils' families and friends. Etching by George Cruikshank.
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