Museums n'That

This one's a corker. Discover why fish and chips are bad, who's got tiny little teeth and the arty love affair that never actually quite happened.

You'll also do some very good learns too - what's the deal with Henry Moore? Why is some art considered art when it looks a bit like you could have done it? What happens if you accidentally break a sculpture?

Find out everything you ever really wanted to know about sculpture as Meg and Sara interview Dr. Rebecca Wade: sculpture expert, curator extraordinaire and Buffy fan.

Listen and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and all the usual podcast suspects. Subscribe and leave us a review!

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Meg and Sara get the tea on the wonderful country of Japan from Adam Jaffer, World Cultures curator at Leeds Museums and Galleries.

We also discover what Humboldt Squids have to do with Peruvian mummies, the incredible commitment of the Shinto monks and, most importantly, where on literal Earth Antarctica even is.

Please be aware that this episode contains discussions about mummification and ritual suicide.

Listen and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and all the usual podcast suspects. Subscribe and leave us a review!

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Meg and Sara interview Chris Sharp, Assistant Community Curator at Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mills and Thwaite Watermill, and owner of the longest job title in history.

Chris talks through his work with local community groups, and how he facilitates people experiencing the museum on their own terms. We cover gardening, mental health, dementia and alpacas in jumpers. And takeaways.

This one's a lovely cuddle for your ears.

Listen and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and all the usual podcast suspects. Subscribe and leave us a review!

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Meg and Sara interview Errin Hussey, Archivist for the Henry Moore Institute and Leeds Museums and Galleries.

Errin spills the beans on what archives actually are: how they're stored, how you should hold them and what happens when the thing you're archiving is actually an orange.

Find out about Bruce Springsteen's archive, what happened with a packet of biscuits in 1960 and how to pronounce Pearl Jam correctly...

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In this first episode, Meg and Sara introduce themselves before interviewing Rebecca Machin, Curator of Natural Science at Leeds Museums and Galleries.

Find out why preserving a caterpillar is especially gross, how one very special gorilla came to be in our collection and most importantly of all, what it's like to shake one David Attenborough's hand. 

Please be aware that this episode features quite graphic discussions about taxidermy and animal anatomy. Taxidermy is the process of using animal skin to make to make a model of how the animal looked when it was alive. Museums use taxidermy for education and research, and Leeds Museums and Galleries does not kill animals for display.

Taxidermy has been used as a way of preserving animals for centuries. Before television and zoos, most people only got to see wild and exotic animals by looking at taxidermy in museums. Some taxidermy was produced as hunting trophies but modern museum taxidermy is undertaken with complete respect for the animals and out of a need for education and research.

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Ey up and welcome to Museums n'That, a new podcast from Leeds Museums and Galleries. 

Museums attract passionate people like moths to a flame, and this podcast gets to the very heart of the things that make them tick, by asking the questions that you actually want to know.

Do you want to know how to taxidermy a caterpillar? Because same. Desperate to know about Bruce Springsteen's archive? Sure mate. Need to know what a World Cultures Curator orders at a takeaway? Almost definitely not, but you're going to find out anyway.

In this first series, your hosts Meg and Sara pour the tea over topics you never knew you needed to know about, by speaking to people across Leeds Museums and Galleries' 9 venues. 

So if that's a bit of you then subscribe and hang fire for the first series of Museums n'That, launching soon from the greatest city in the world. 

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