It’s very self-reflective for a museum to present its own labels as display objects, but if there was to be a museum of museum heritage interpretation it makes sense to have it in a place like this, which seeks to offer a glimpse behind the scenes of exhibition making. How genuine that glimpse is …

Getting politicians and the public to take notice is hard work. But queer activists know how to get attention. ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) is an international activist movement originally founded in New York in 1987. By the 1990s, it was active in Manchester …

The new art galleries at the IWM open with a mix of paintings, photographs and film from a range of conflicts and perspectives, setting the visitor up for what lies ahead. It’s as broad and engaging as the rest of the galleries, shaped into …

100 years ago, Georgian sovereignty and national identity were being pulled in multiple directions. Beyond the unifying symbol of St George, the scripts present on this money point to various influences …

Is it appropriate to show human remains in museums? And is it right that a human skull that appears to have been ‘exploded’ goes on display? In this case, the skull has been taken apart and is shown like this in order for students to study …

Of the dozen or so portraits of Derek Jarman in the NPG collection, this is perhaps my favourite. Rather than a posed black and white photograph or a more formal form of portraiture, this captures a fluid queerness that’s refreshing to see …

During the Second World War, workers digging peat for the construction of the RAF Valley airfield on Anglesey/Ynys Mon came across a hoard of over 150 Iron Age objects, including weapons, jewellery and tools. The find offers us a glimpse into the trade networks and craftsmanship of ancient Welsh …

Defining words like man, woman, male and female in so-called ‘biological’ terms is a dangerous business. Despite what you might be told, we humans – like many birds, beasts and fish – have a delightfully broad range of biological variance and locking us down to one end of the spectrum is fraught with danger …

Apart from the obvious breakage risk, the physical properties of glass make it a good repository for pharmaceutical products. The choice of colour for that glass has been, over the years, an aesthetic and later a scientifically backed one. In 1836, Teodor Torosiewicz discovered …

At the start of the Second World War, Poland was divided up, not for the first time. The Nazi and Soviet sectors are shown on this map, marked in pencil and signed in red (Ribbentrop) and blue (Stalin) with the date of the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty …

Millions of American Bison (Bison bison) were hunted across North America in the 1800s to protect the developing railroads and for their skins and tongues. And their removal also persecuted the first nation Americans already living there …

Crisp days and clear skies are here in the UK, yet chilled winds and raindrops still persist in Springtime. When I look at the rain in this painting, I’m reminded that it doesn’t chill us to the bones as it did a few month ago …

Each St Patrick’s Day, curators at the museum hand this object over to St Patricks’ parish, Belfast. The black oblong on the back of this hand is opened up and a relic – a supposed fragment of the man himself – is placed in there for worshippers to see …

That the sitter was a lesbian is clearly on record as was the furore caused around the publication of her novel The Well of Loneliness (1928), which makes the argument for lesbian rights and same-sex marriage. A decade after this portrait was painted, her work would be banned …

The name Terence Higgins sits on queer people's lips with both pride and poignancy. Terence’s biography as a House of Commons Hansard reporter, barman and DJ is largely overshadowed by him being one of the first people in the UK to die of an AIDS-related illness …

Meet the Chevalier, a part of early 19th-century fashionable London society. A French diplomat, soldier, spy, celebrity fencer, performer and author, d’Eon lived and dressed throughout their life as both a man and woman. A source of fascination, people placed bets on …

The camaraderie of a football team is as strong today as it’s ever been.  It’s often captured in a classic pose, arms folded and shoulder to shoulder with team mates. This one was captured by socially engaged photographer Marge Bradshaw who has spent time taking portraits …

Sculpted over 2000 years ago, this sculpture turned up in a bin bag and was called in by a member of the public. It's nearly 80cm tall, so doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would accidentally fall into the household recycling …

How clever to create an exhibition about something we walk on every day – soil. There’s a whole world down there, hidden away. Scientific explanations of what lies under our feet are all very well, but this creative and visually attractive response to the subject of soil is very attractive to me …

29 January is the start of the Year of the Snake. This enchanting beast’s skeleton is on display in Chinese zodiac cultural relics joint exhibition at the museum. Some 50 snake specimens and a large number of snake-related cultural relics …

One of the first musical acts to have a video game tie-in was a queer band who’d already hit the headlines. When a gaming company so prominently featured a band who’d had a controversial run in the press, we might wonder …

Today, the Blasket Islands are uninhabited. This newspaper article documents the decline in population, leading to their abandonment in 1954. These images have an air of melancholy about them, especially the boy and his dog, shy and unsure about what the future holds …

While the world tells us that the new year means we all ought to be leaping into new ventures, the image of January in this panel seems to show a tired bearded man, warming his hands by the fire. According to this wooden panel, probably from the early 1700s …