Psychic Fish at the Museum of Natural History

Our ‘Psychic Fish’ intervention had another successful outing last Friday night at the Oxford Museum of Natural History.

Following on the heels (or shall we say fins?) of previous events – including at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, the Science Uncovered Manchester festival, and the Oxford Community Fair – our creative appropriation of the classic Fortune Telling Fish game once again proved enormously popular. A fun icebreaker, the fish proved a great way to open up conversations about fish welfare and human – fish relations with the visiting public, a topic we’ve blogged about previously. 

In all, we estimate that we engaged with around 150 people directly, although around 1300 people attended the Museum’s Late Night: Oceans and Island’s event, and many of these passed by our stall. Many who tried out the Psychic Fish also  left amusing, and sometimes poignant, comments on our fishily-themed feedback wall. For example, a number made play with famous line from Finding Nemo: “Fish are friends… and food”. Another left a Haiku entitled To a Fish: 

    May you swim freely,
  
    Around the deep blue abyss – 
    Live unencumbered. 

Many thanks to Bentley Crudgington who both pioneered the use of ‘Psychic Fish’ for public engagement purposes, and created most of the the materials we used on the night.