British Museum's new Arctic exhibition will show extremes of life in a cold climate

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Robert Dex @RobDexES9 January 2020

Visitors to the British Museum will get a lesson in living with “extreme weather” at a show about the people of the Arctic.

The exhibition celebrates the resourcefulness and what can be learnt from those living in some of the world’s harshest conditions.

Almost 300 objects have been gathered together including artefacts, photographs, drawings and wall hangings in a bid to shed light on the inhabitants of a place often more celebrated for its awe-inspiring landscape and animal life.

Curator Amber Lincoln, who works in the museum’s Americas section, said: “This is an inhabited place, people have been living there for 30,000 years. There are rich lives in the Arctic: polar bears are amazing and icebergs are beautiful but this way of living has so much to teach us all.”

Also going on show alongside examples of contemporary art are important historical artefacts including a sledge made of bone, ivory and driftwood tied together by sealskin.

It was traded by members of an indigenous tribe with British explorer Sir John Ross during his 1818 expedition, which was the first contact between the native people and Europeans.

The sledge, which is part of the museum’s main collection, was built so it could be taken apart and the separate pieces used again in the summer months before being reassembled for winter.

Ms Lincoln said: “When you look at it closely and you understand the kind of material used, it is just such an ingenious use of scarce material. It is about a constant process of recycling and reusing.”

Also on show are walrus ivory needles which date back to about 28,000BC, discovered during an archaeological dig at the mouth of a Siberian river some 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Other exhibits include a child’s all-in-one fur suit and a carved ivory model of a dog sled team, as well as a bag made from tanned salmon skin and a wall hanging inspired by the flowers in the tundra’s brief summers.

Museum director Hartwig Fischer said the show was “a bold and ambitious exhibition that reflects the expanding vision of the British Museum”. He said: “The show directly addresses the essential question of how humans can live with the impacts of extreme weather.”

The Citi exhibition Arctic: Culture And Climate runs from May 28 to August 23.

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