Past Exhibitions
Ethnographic Collection
- Makarr-garma: Aboriginal Collections from a Yolŋu Perspective
The Makarr-garma is a ceremony of formal invitation and introduction to Yolŋu land and culture. Guest curator, Dr Joseph Neparrŋa Gumbula uses this concept as a way of welcoming us to share in his understanding of the Yolŋu world.
more - Footprints in the Mythic Landscape: A Bark Painting Story
The paintings made by artists and ceremonial leaders on bark are one of the most internationally recognised aspects of Aboriginal culture.
more - People, Power and Politics
The First Generation of Anthropologists at the University of Sydney
more - Collected
150 years of Aboriginal Art & Artifacts
more - Adorned
Objects of Adornment from Australia and the Pacific.
More - Great Expectations - The Chevert Expedition to New Guinea in 1875
a failure?
more - "Spoils of War"? - Walter Wilson Froggatt in the Kimberleys in 1887
A violent episode
more - Yalo i Viti - Spirit of Fiji
Fijian material culture.
More - A Noble Cause - The Life and Work of Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay
Macleay's celebrated Russian colleague
more - Island Encounters
Artefacts from the Torres Strait and Pacific Islands 1860-1891 - features many of the more significant pieces from the collections.
More - Murawari works - Roy Barker Jr
Roy Barker Jr engages with the need to preserve the integrity and continuity of Aboriginal knowledge and techniques while embracing modern technologies and methods in his carving style.
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Scientific Instrument Collection
- A Small History of Microscopy
This small display on historic microscopy and slides will bring you into this tiny but fascinating world.
more - Jenny Pollak
Artist Jenny Pollak has created artworks of protozoa, photographed using scanning electron microscopy.
more - In Sickness and In Health
Body temperature and its measurement
more - By Land and Sea - Instruments of Place
An exhibition on surveying
more - Brass, Glass and Wood
Scientific instruments as works of art?
more - Most Curious and Peculiar
Women Taxidermists in Colonial Sydney
more - Reading Heads & Ruling Passions - an exhibition on phrenology
more - Aspects of Geological History
Unearthing geology's past
more - Pioneer of Precision - Captain Henry Kater
An exhibition on metrology.
more - The Microscope - Science by Design
Microscopes from the Scientific Instrument collection
more - Working with Microscopes
A display about microscope accessories and slide preparation techniques
more - Slipsticks
Slide rules, old and older
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Natural History
- WS Macleay and the natural history circle
William Sharp Macleay’s natural history opus Horae Entomologicae (1819-1821) sought God’s order in nature through a system of organisation based on the affinities and analogies between organisms.
more - samples (A Taxonomy of Objects) – Karin Findeis
In samples Karin Findeis illuminates the public, ordered and wonderful spaces of the curiosity cabinet through the portable and intimate medium of jewellery.
more - Museum: Robyn Stacey
Stacey's pictorially sumptuous photographic images investigate each specimen's material precence.
more - Rational Order: Carl von Linné 1707-1778
A celebration of the Kingdom Animalia and Linnaeus's ordering of it.
more - Natures Last Stand
Enables you to explore the vulnerable nature of life. By reflecting on the processes that have affected individual species survival, we can often lay the blame at the feet of humankind.
more - Preserving the Future
Examines the role of collecting zoological specimens in museums. What can we learn form these preserved bodies of life? How were they preserved and prepared?
more - Life on the Wing
A display which examines the adaptations that have lead to the successful radiation of birds around the world. From their dinosaurian ancestry to today, birds have improved on a basic design which has made them the masters of the air.
more - Dodo - "Dead as a..."
Exploding a myth
more - Vermiforms
The aim of this display is to draw a clear understanding of the evolutionary trends of the animals Linnaeus, loosely termed Vermiforms, or "worm like creatures".
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Other
- The Meaning of Life: Celebrating 50 years of Biological Sciences at the University of Sydney
This exhibition invites the public to expand their views on the meaning of life through the stories of research in the School of Biological Sciences.
more - Coral: Art Science Life
In Coral: art four artists exhibit works that explore our relationship with this fragile waterscape. In Coral: science the work of four University scientists demonstrates the importance of research for understanding the reefs and their future. In Coral: life two schools in the Torres Strait share their vision of living on the reefs of the Coral Sea.
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The Quest for Red: Trade and experiment
Piracy, war, espionage, exploration and international intrigue are all brought into play at the Macleay Museum in this exhibition, which explores the ways humans have exploited pigments to make the colour red.
more- The Human Redesign Project
After the oil runs dry what alternatives will we turn to? What renewable resources will we exploit to replace the combustion engine and the electric motor?
more - Picturing New South Wales: Photographs by Kerry and Co
In the early 20th century, Charles Kerry, owner of the leading Sydney photographic studio Kerry & Co, found a new market for his photographs of NSW in the growing pictorial postcard trade. To expand his stock his photographers travelled to country towns to create new views for sale.
more - Dangerous Worlds
Using inspiration from nature, Enmore TAFE Design and Illustration students created maquettes and works on paper of future human species that live in an utterly altered world.
more - Griffith Taylor: Global Geographer
Taylor's career in Australia, the United States and Canada encompassed Antarctic exploration, ethnography and nation planning.
more - Living and Working, Learning and Playing Together: Children’s Reconciliation Artworks
This exhibition will include highlights from the Reconciliation Week Primary Schools Art Competition organised by the Eastern Region Local Government Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Forum.
more - Accidental Encounters
This exhibition delves into science, life and culture in Australia through the letters of Henrietta Heathorn and Thomas Huxley.
more - Futurescape
Far into the future the world’s climate has radically changed.
more - Small Matters: exploring the world of microscopy
Celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the University of Sydney's Electron Microscope Unit.
more - Upstairs Downstairs - The Changing Shape of the Macleay Building
This looks at the purpose, design, construction and changing uses of the Macleay Building since it was built in 1887.
more - An Architect's Antidote
The Buildings of Science Road - examines the grand vision of Leslie Wilkinson, Professor of Architecture at the University of Sydney from 1919-1947.
more - Wanderlust
A joint exhibition with the Museum of Sydney
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