Echoes From the Museum: Thylacines and Tasmanian Violence: Using Sonic Based Storytelling to Reframe Museum Collections and Reputations

Reframing Museum Collections and Reputations is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Sonic Screen Lab (University of the Arts, London) and the Museum of Zoology (Cambridge University).

Today, natural history museums are starting to research the deeper histories of how their collections were built, and this is revealing some surprising and troubling stories.
Thylacines, or Tasmanian tigers, are icons of extinction, and some of the world’s best-preserved specimens are in University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge. This series of podcasts explores new research there, uncovering an uncomfortable truth about how the history of the extinction of the thylacine had strong parallels with the violent events that took place in Tasmania in the nineteenth century and Aboriginal remains from Morton Allport (1830-1878).

Zoologist and author Jack Ashby (University of Cambridge), journalist and academic Lainy Malkani (University of the Arts London), and Elder uncle Hank Horton, a Pakana man from Trooloolway mob, lutruwita, Tasmania, explore the university collection, and discuss why it’s important to tell these difficult stories.

The three podcasts are:

1. Tasmanian Tigers: Uncomfortable Truths, Understanding and Acknowledging Violence.
2. Stories Behind the Scenes
3. New Perspectives: Whose Stories are Museums Telling?

The series is part of a unique art/science collaboration between the Sonic Screen Lab, UAL (Lainy Malkani, Professor Shreepali Patel & Julia Schauerman), Hank Horton, and the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge (Jack Ashby). The project applies sonic based storytelling to engage wider audiences with the reframing of Museum’s collection.

Listeners to the podcasts should be aware that we will be discussing events that involved racial violence in Tasmania.

• https://soundcloud.com/university-of-cam...
• https://museumofzoologyblog.com/2025/02/...
• https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.336...