Zoological Museum > Exhibitions > Spiders

Spiders – a new beautiful exhibition

From April the 24th 2012 at the Zoological Museum

THE BEAUTY OF THE BEAST. They are beautiful, creative and alive - the spiders. With the new exhibition called Spiders, The Natural History Museum of Denmark shows that the eight-legged animals have much more to offer than fear, prejudice and fright. So throw your prejudices aside and come to the Zoological Museum to enjoy the beauty of the beast in an exhibition in which nature and art are merged together.

Eight eyes, poison glands and a bad reputation. Spiders give a lot of people the shivers, but actually they can be incredibly beautiful and have a way of life that is fascinating as a good play in the theatre. The Natural History Museum's new exhibition called Spiders tries to make people look past the creepy surface by inviting the audience inside bright rooms where the spiders' story is told in a beautiful interplay between natural history and art.

- I have to admit that I am one of those people who have a pretty hard time dealing with spiders. It is a strange feeling to be afraid of something on the one hand and at the same time be attracted to it. This duality holds an enormous fascination, says Hanne Strager, exhibition director at the Natural History Museum, and she continues:

- I think it has been exciting to work on this exhibition where we have had to struggle a bit with the ideas and phobias connected to spiders. In this process, I have come to realize how beautiful and fascinating they are. We have worked hard to show the wonderful and amazing sides of the spider, and I am especially excited about the unique golden shawl made from silk from spiders which we have managed to get hold of for the exhibition and the incredible glass sculptures which the British artist Neil Wilkin has made for us.

The exhibit has this (and much more) on display:

• The golden shawl – made from silk from 41.000 spiders and created by Nicholas Godley and Simon Peers

• Colourful glass spiders - created by the British glass artist Neil Wilkin

• Creative engineering - Guillaume Lehoux's famous bowls , inspired by spiders on drugs

• Appearances deceive - a 1.7 metre-high spider in leather designed by one of Denmark's leading model makers Esben Horn

• And of course ... real living spiders of all shapes and colours, including the Goliath spider - the world's largest of its kind