Past Exhibitions

Ethnographic Collection

• 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
• Boomerangs - An exhibition on Australian Boomerangs
• Living Water: looks at the diversity of people’s experiences living with, and without, water through the Macleay’s ethnographic collections.
  This exhibition is shown in conjunction with Dreaming Water at the Art Collection, War Memorial Gallery, University of Sydney.
• Reconciliation Week art competition
  A display of school children's art works from the Reconciliation Week art competition held in conjunction with the Eastern Region Local Government Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Forum.
  1 August - 31 August
• 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.
  more

Scientific Instrument Collection

• Jenny Pollak
  An exhibition by artist Jenny Pollak.
  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
  more
• On the inside: anatomy and learning
  An exhibition in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the Medical Faculty at the University of Sydney

Natural History

• 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".
  more