7+7+7 etc. at The Museum of the History of Science, Oxford
If you happen to be in Oxford on Saturday, don’t miss The Museum of the History of Science‘s celebration of the-once-in-a-century date 07-07-07, ”a day of talks, activities, tours, trails, music and film” revolving around the number 7.
For example a series of seven talks: ”Seven Days in the Week” by Stephen Clucas, “Seven Seas” by Elizabeth Baigent, “Seven Years War” by Erica Charters, “Seven Deadly Sins” by Canon Brian Mountford, “Seven Colours of the Rainbow” by Stuart Judge, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” by Jack Flavell, and ”Seven Wonders of the Ancient World” by Michael Vickers.
Other events of the day include ‘Search for Seven: A trail for young visitors’, ’Seven Stars’ (the most famous seven objects in the collection), ’Seven Secrets’ (seven objects you might not notice), etc. — and finally The D’Aranyi String Quartet will play Haydn’s quartet ‘The Seven Last Words of Christ from the Cross’. Evening visitors can also watch Buster Keaton’s movie ‘Seven Chances’ (but why not Se7en?)
What a creative idea for a science museum event! See the detailed programme here.
02 Jul 2007 Thomas
Great idea! Even though the idea is not as new as it seems. 7(!) years ago the most expensive temporary exhibition ever, namely “Sieben Hügel”/ “Seven Hills”, was shown in Berlin 14 May – 29 October 2000. The title of the exhibition was elaborated on the number 7 and the exhibition was presented like this: “Solomon’s seven pillars of wisdom, the seven hills on which Rome was built, the seven wonders of the world which amazed the ancients and now the seven themes of the Berlin millennial exhibition: Nucleus, Jungle, Cosmos, Civilisation, Faith, Knowledge, Dream.” Structured around associations the exhibition displayed the latest technology juxtaposed with some of the finest treasures of Europe (from Descartes’ own skull to an huge elephant attacked by a tiger captured by the taxidermist at that dramatic moment along with film dress from Alien and painting by Richter, Picasso etc.) I wonder if the Oxford-people are inspired by this exhibition or if history just repeats itself every 7 years!
No, we didn’t know about that precedent, but it’s not surprising that someone has been there before – no new thing under the sun. Thanks for this.