INK was an eclectic collection of 120 museum artefacts, artworks, texts, films and other items all relating to the history and substance of ink. It drew extensively from the remarkable teaching collections, personal archives and the work of staff at University College London (UCL), and contemporary artworks sat alongside priceless museum artefacts and everyday objects.

Every day a ‘live respondent’ inhabited the space and created an exhibit to add to the collection. These included political cartoonists Nicola Jennings and Martin Rowson, renowned tattooist Lal Hardy, artist and poet Ansuman Biswas, and calligrapher Paul Antonio.

BONE at the Florence Nightingale Museum was created to explore a rich and vital material from an inter-disciplinary perspective.  It was designed to present its contents evenly and accessibly with no one object – be it museum object, artwork, every day item or scientific imagery – prized above another.

Deliberately installed without labels, the exhibition design by Mobile Studio architects and field guide by MOTHandRUST were constructed to provide information as a departure point for the curious rather than as definitive answers, and to encourage audiences to make their own connections and relationships between objects.

A number of “live respondents” who work with bone were in residence throughout the exhibition, adding to the exhibition. They included sculptor George Nuku, taxidermist Amanda’s Autopsies, and artist Sue Palmer.