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Guernsey Museums opens its doors at Candie again today, with a number of new, exciting and thought-provoking exhibitions.
Headlining them all though is the collection of award-winning photographs from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which, now in its 55th year, contains a range of stunning images.
Guernsey Museum is one of the few places outside of London getting to host this collection and is the only place in the Channel Islands. Run by the Natural History Museum, the competition has grown from having a few hundred entries to nearly 50,000, according to Lisa Buxton from Guernsey Museums.
Helen Glencross, Acting Head of Heritage Services, added that there is something for everyone: "I am sure it will delight and inspire all our visitors, whether they enjoy seeing the variety of animals on display or appreciating the beauty, the humour or the message in some of the world’s very best wildlife photography. We are delighted to host this popular exhibition again this year."
Pictured: It's still unclear why these porpoise bones were buried on Guernsey's west coast, but you can find out more about them and see them for yourself now at the museum.
But the stunning wildlife photography exhibition is not all that is on offer at Candie. There have also been changes in the Discovery Room - the Museum's hands on learning area - with a new theme on communication. The team have worked hard to put together an authentic experience based on Bletchley Park in 'The Code Room', and have built a unique to Candie Enigma Machine.
Also on display for 2020 is a display of telephones from the Museum collection. These range from the late 19th century telephones up to the heavy mobiles of the 1980s and the present day.
"Every year we have a different theme in this room," Jo Dowding said, "the team have worked really hard to put it all together in time for the opening."
Pictured: In the lobby area, a fantastically detailed ink drawing by the artist Olivia Kemp, ‘The Where That Was’, will be on display.
Next, The Guernsey Arts Commission are hosting their first exhibition of the year in the greenhouse gallery, entitled "7 Nocturnes East". Russ Fossey explained that this was a multi-media exhibition showing off the island's east coast bays.
"The starting point for this was a conversation with Flexagon, an electronic musician, who had an idea for a project for a new CD "7 Nocturnes East", where we would go out to the bays on the east coast and record the sound we found, and he would then take those recordings and create a soundscape," he said.
"The idea for an exhibition then grew from that. We thought we could take the soundscapes he created, and ask artists to respond to them in any way they saw fit, and create an exhibition."
Pictured: 7 Nocturnes East.
The Greenhouse Gallery at Candie is now alive with the sounds of the bays and accompanied by a mix of paintings, sculpture, poetry and more. One of the tracks even features the sounds of diggers digging, because that is what the artist came across when he was recording. The St Peter Port soundscape has the shouting of town goers in the background as well.
The artists are Adam Stephens, Aeva Joy Magdalena, Bozena Pollock, Bridget Spinney, MaryJane Orley, Monika Drabot and Zone Comic.
"Both Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2019 and 7 Nocturnes East start on 31st January and finish on 22nd March. The Code Room and telephone display run until 31st December 2020."
Pictured top: L-R Jo Dowding, Lisa Buxton and Andre Sangan outside of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition.
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