The Cabinet of Curiosities exhibition

A WINDOW on the world of academic research and how it reflects the world we live in is being opened up in the city centre next week as part of an event called the Curious Festival organised by the University of Sheffield.
The Cabinet of Curiosities exhibition, on show in a shop window on the Moor from Monday, will invite people to consider their own lives and how they use the space around them.

The unique display is based on the 17th century idea of using a cabinet to exhibit personal collections. It will showcase research from the university looking at how people live in and use different spaces such as homes, gardens and public spaces and how they personalise them.
The display will include a snapshot of research into a variety of topics such as the relationship between builders and architects and the way they communicate in order to get the best possible result.

Other themes are the role of men in the home during the 18th century compared with the role they play in modern life and the use of literacy in material objects around the house

Also explored are reasons people decide on a natural burial and the various ways in which Soviet people furnished prefabricated flats which were built to solve an acute housing problem in the former Soviet Union
The idea of using a glass-fronted cabinet as a way to learn about the world goes back to the 16th and 17th centuries when men began displaying their collections of often odd and unusual objects in custom-made cabinets.

Their collections showed the curiosity of the owners and, like material libraries, they also allowed others to learn about new and unfamiliar things.

The exhibition, which has been produced with designer Nick Bax from Humanstudio, will invite passers-by to stop for a moment and think about their own collections and displays. Visitors to the exhibition are then encouraged to share their thoughts on an online blog.

Susan Reid, co-curator of the exhibition from the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies, said: "Cabinets of Curiosity brought diverse knowledge into a single compact space – almost like a miniature university.

"Much has changed since the 16th century but most of us have somewhere in our homes - a glass-fronted cabinet, a mantelpiece, or some other place - where we collect and display things that are meaningful or precious to us.

"The aim of the cabinet exhibition is to give shoppers in central Sheffield a chance to window shop on the research and learning that goes on in the University and to think about how it relates to their own everyday lives.

"The display will ask questions such as what sits on your mantelpiece, why do some people choose to be buried in natural burial grounds, how do things around the home help children to read and does Dad have his special chair?

"The exhibition will demonstrate how we can all learn from everyday material things and find out more about what it means to be human."
The Cabinet of Curiosities, on view in the small kiosk near British Home Stores for two weeks, is just part of a line-up of the strange and unusual in the worlds of performance, vision and sound.

The Curious Festival has been organised by the university's Faculty of Arts and Humanities, home to the Schools English and Modern Languages and Linguistics, and the Departments of Music, History, Archaeology, Biblical Studies and Philosophy.

It will showcase some of the work and activities that take place there and the impact it has on the cultural life of the city, the region and further afield.

Other events include workshops in ectro-acoustic music, Taiwanese traditional wind and percussion workshop and tango, evenings of film, poetry and performance.

There will be a new physical theatre piece in the new performance space in a disused factory in Attercliffe and a reconstruction of an Iron Age smelting furnace in Weston Park.

In the field of music will be an evening of piano and readings, Nocturne: The Romantic Life of Frédéric Chopin, and performances by folk musicians from the Czech Republic.
Most events are free but may have restricted numbers. For a full list of events, and information on how to register interest, visit http://www.shef.ac.uk/curious/index.html

A shopfront on the Moor is being used by the University of Sheffield to look at the spaces we live in, reports Ian Soutar

Curious Festival graphics represent sound, performance and visuals