The museum is opening parts of its scientific collections to the public. A walk through our «Cabinet of Curiosities» – the display collection provides insight into our current collection activities, modern research methods and our priceless historical collections. All in all, the exhibition is an eye-opening overview of one of the most pressing issues of our time.
Scientific collections are home to millions of specimens of animals and plants. They serve as indispensable archives of the natural world, documenting life in all its many forms – what we call biodiversity – while also highlighting how this is disappearing. In the «Cabinet of Curiosities», a traditional wet collection that continues to be highly relevant today, the thousands of animals preserved in jars bear witness to this loss. However, they also emphasise the efforts made to document and preserve biodiversity. In this way, the exhibition provides a different perspective on scientific collections: visitors may enter expecting a whimsical cabinet of curiosities, and instead find themselves in an impressive research centre for biodiversity.
