Exhibit Highlights

Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments

Surveillance: From Vision to Data

Two eyes above the text "Surveillance: From Vision to Data"

Opening Thursday, September 21, 2023, in the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments. This timely exhibit considers surveillance beyond the realm of cameras and their watchers, exposing the profound influence of data.

Learn about the historical instruments that have been used to transform individuals and landscapes into data. Uncover how powerful entities, from colonial empires to U.S. intelligence agencies, have harnessed surveillance data to produce and perpetuate social hierarchies. Immerse yourself in interactive critical artworks that challenge and resist surveillance through data. Look beyond vision and toward data to reveal an elusive, and now ubiquitous, form of visibility.

Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East

Mediterranean Marketplaces
Connecting the Ancient World

A man and a woman looking into a replicate house.
© Tony Rinaldo

Much like today, ancient “consumers” were connected to distant markets. Both basic and precious goods from faraway lands “shipped” to royal palaces, elite estates—sometimes even rural households—and technological advances in craftsmanship and commerce transcended boundaries of language, religion, or culture to spread rapidly. Mediterranean Marketplaces: Connecting the Ancient World explores how the movement of goods, peoples, and ideas around the ancient Mediterranean transformed the lives and livelihoods of people at all levels of society, driving innovations that had lasting impacts—even on the modern world. Open at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East.

Harvard Museum of Natural History

In Search of Thoreau’s Flowers
An Exploration of Change

Man looking at Thoreau projection
© Tony Rinaldo

On view at the Harvard Museum of Natural HistoryIn Search of Thoreau’s Flowers: An Exploration of Change and Loss is an immersive multidisciplinary experience that marries art and science through a modern artistic interpretation of Henry David Thoreau’s preserved plants. The exhibition invites visitors to experience emotionally resonant connections to the profound loss of natural diversity caused by human-induced climate change. The exhibition urges us to ask, “What do Thoreau’s findings tell us about what plants are winning, and what plants are losing, in the face of climate change today?”

Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology

Shehuo: Community Fire
社火

Villagers wearing a lion dance costume for two performers, Huozhuang Village, Henan Province, 2018
Photo Credit: © Zhang Xiao © 张晓

May 13, 2023–April 14, 2024

Zhang Xiao, the 11th recipient of the Peabody Museum’s Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography, brings us on a bilingual photographic exploration of the transformation of Shehuo, a traditional spring festival held in rural northern China that coincides with the New Year. When Zhang began his photography in 2007, Shehuo (社火, Community Fire) was celebrated with great regional variation, and included prayers for a good harvest and ritual performances of local folk tales.

2023年5月13日至2024年4月14日

张晓是皮博迪博物馆罗伯特·加德纳摄影奖(Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography)的第11位获得者,他将带领我们进行一次双语的摄影探索,展现社火这一中国北方农村欢度春节的传统习俗及其变迁。张晓在2007年开始拍摄此系列作品时,社火的庆祝活动因地域差异而各具特色,包括对于丰收的祈求和本地民间故事的宗教仪式表演.

Exhibit Spotlights

HMSC Connects! Exhibit Spotlights offer a virtual window into intriguing cultural and scientific concepts with online exhibits, selections from gallery exhibitions, and more.

The Groundbreaker: A Woman Archaeologist in a Field Led by Men

This exhibit highlights archaeological archives of Theresa B. Goell, director of an international field excavation site, detailing her travels and experiences as she worked in this male dominated field.

Black and white of Theresa B. Goell standing next to a large statue during an archaeological dig.
A cocoon with a bead of red liquid emerging.

Cochineal: How Mexico Made the World See Red

This is the story of a color—one that began as an evolutionary tale, and evolved to shape the course of human history.

Cochinilla: Cómo México Hizo que el Mundo Viera el Rojo

Esta es la historia de un color que comenzó como un cuento evolutivo y evolucionó para dar forma al curso de la historia humana.

Women of the Museum 1860-1920: Behind-the-Scenes at the Museum of Comparative Zoology

This exhibit highlights women’s expertise and extensive knowledge of the museum’s collections may not have been fully appreciated by their contemporaries but today we recognize how their work allowed the museum to grow into its role as a center for research, teaching, and public programs.

A black and white photo of a woman working at a desk.
A black and white photo of Sigmund Freud holding a cigar.

The Interpretation of Drawings: Freud & the Visual Origins of Psychoanalysis

This exhibition invites the viewer to explore the role Sigmund Freud’s sketches and drawings played in the development of his psychoanalytic theories.

A World of Viruses

Learn more about viruses as we explore what they are, where they can be found, and how they behave in both a positive and negative way.

A computer generated image of viruses.
A shark swimming in the deep blue sea.

Sharks: Streamlined Swimmers

In this exhibit spotlight, learn how sharks’ body design has been honed over hundreds of millions of years to increase swimming performance.

Uncovering Pacific Pasts: Harvard’s Early Endeavors in Oceanic Anthropology

Learn how early Harvard scholars imagined Oceania and listen to Pacific Islanders reflect on Peabody Museum collections.

A model of a canoe.
Planter in front of the museum filled with native plants.

Rewilding Harvard

An initiative to restore biodiversity, Rewilding returns native plants to a planter in front of the Harvard Museum of Natural History.