SPECIAL EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS

Powell-Cotton Museum holds a number of exhibitions and events each year that add further attraction to a visit.   Additional charge to some events apply.

Should an event be cancelled through lack of support the value of the ticket will be refunded.

The Powell-Cotton Museum reserve the right to amend event details (advertised or otherwise) without prior notice and without liability.

Admission to an Event, car park and associated areas are at the Visitor's own risk.

The Powell-Cotton Museum reserves the right to refuse admission.

 

With us in Spirit

from January 2013
10am-5pm

 

‘With us in Spirit’ is the exciting new exhibition opening at the Powell-Cotton Museum in January 2013. In the 1930s, a long-time friend and collaborator of Major Percy Powell-Cotton, Fred Merfield, collected over 70 specimens in Cameroon, including frogs, snakes, scorpions, small chimpanzees and antelopes and preserved them in alcohol. Following a conservation project in 2012 to transfer the specimens out of their old jars and into new alcohol, the museum is proud to display them all for the first time. The exhibition will take a look at the history of spirit collections, how they are used now (think Damien Hirst!) and will also give visitors an insight into the important research work which goes on behind the scenes at the museum.  A researcher has been studying the frogs in our spirit collection in order to help the survival of frogs in Africa today which are being wiped out by a type of fungus. This collection is now very much alive and proving useful for contemporary conservation efforts. 

TALA! Visions of Angola

Continuing into 2013
10am-5pm

Visions of Angola, is a very special exhibition for 2012 made possible through the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund. It presents previously unseen artefacts, photographs and film footage drawn from the rich wealth of materials brought back from Angola in the 1930's by Diana and Antoinette Powell-Cotton, the two pioneering daughters of Major Percy Powell-Cotton.

The exhibition curators spent a year of working closely with the Angolan diaspora in the UK, including community groups and official institutions to create this multi-media display of carefully selected historical and contemporary objects as well as film footage that reflects and celebrates some very personal histories including that of the two sisters whose vision is only now being realised.

The individual stories that motivate many of the selections have also been recorded and will be available via audio handsets alongside display cases, giving the objects a new voice, representing continuity, change and an evolving Angola.

Commenting on the exhibition, the curators said: “The objects we had access to, were made by somebody’s great grandmother or great grandfather. They deserve to be seen and remembered by their rightful ancestors as well as the wider public. Just as importantly, the Angolan community here in the UK have a right to be involved in the decisions made about the collection. This is after all their history.” This unique and collaborative form of curation has innovatively mixed old and new to provide a fresh view of Angola and the collection.

Hedley Basford - Photographic Exhibition

The Powell-Cotton Museum, Quex House and Gardens at Birchington, Kent have commissioned Hedley Basford, a local photographer, to produce a set of 10 large canvases to decorate the walls of the Meeting Room, a large room with a full-length 18th Century Servants Hall table running down the middle. This room will shortly be available for hire for meetings and events. The canvases display the diverse features of Quex – the animals in the dioramas, the gardens, the porcelain and archaeology and the world-famous bell tower known as the Waterloo Tower.
Hedley has also been invited to mount an exhibition of his own photographs in the Museum’s Glass Corridor. The exhibition, which has opened this week, presents a variety of subjects, from a bizarre railway engine in a French town square to a view of the sea off Herne Bay one cold and wet day last winter.
Hedley is a member of the Herne Bay Photographic Club and has won three first places in print competitions this year. Further examples of his work can be seen on his website www.hedleybasford.com.

Treasures of the Orient    -   Breathtaking beauty of Netsuke carvings



Over the next few weeks many of the two hundred and fifty netsuke at Quex will emerge from their fine storehouse – a sumptuous Chinese red lacquer chest - and form a new display in Gallery Eight.

These were the pride and joy of Major Powell-Cotton who first bought a few choice netsuke during his ‘World Trip’ of 1889-91.

Come and enjoy the progress of this display as part of our  Developing “Story of Quex”.

Percy’s  Eye-openers - World Trip Wonders 
NEW DISPLAY OPEN APRIL 2013


In 1889 twenty-three year old Percy Cotton set off with notebook and camera on an inspiring and often hazardous journey around the world discovering places and cultures very new to him.

Detailed diaries that he kept help us to understand what encouraged him to create a museum to inform and entertain and inspire future generations to continue his work.

The Powell-Cotton Museum in Birchington is presenting  a selection of amazing treasures and stunning photographs, enabling the visitor to appreciate some of this young man’s eye-opening experiences.

Month by month the display of World Trip objects will be renewed from the latest ‘finds’.   So come and follow this fascinating feature – at the Museum in Gallery Eight and online.