Visual Arts Scotland – ‘Natural Collection’

Exhibition Dates: Wednesday 29th April 2026 – 7th June 2026 (One Exhibition room)

Venue: Scottish Ornithologist Club | Presented by Visual Arts Scotland

Visual Arts Scotland are delighted to return to the Scottish Ornithologist Club, Aberlady from April to June 2026 for our ‘Natural Collection’ exhibition.

Humans have long collected, categorised and depicted the natural world, from the15th century cabinets of curiosities filled with natural wonders, to botanical drawings of flora and fauna. The primary aim of many historic nature collections was to foster a deeper understanding of the natural world through the categorisation of specimens and their data. In the age of discovery they served as valuable research resources; to catalogue, identify and classify new species, study them for research, and preserve them. We are all familiar with the images of butterflies, moths and assorted insects caught and pinned to boards. We may not think of doing this now, but often specimens such as these were key in telling the history of the human desire to understand the natural world. These acts of collection reflect both a reverence for nature and a desire to interpret it.

The scientific community still uses collections to answer questions about the past, present and future of our world, but what might interpretations of contemporary nature collections look like today when so many species are endangered, and climate change is threatening all aspects of our planet, we have a different ethos about the morality of capturing live specimens. Indeed, advances in technology, photography and environmental awareness make it easy to record and observe nature without having to physically ‘collect’ what should not be taken. Is there still a need to categorise, to identify, to gather, or is this process to allow a deeper connection to the natural world. Why are people compelled to collect; for the pleasure in gaining ‘sets’, to expand their knowledge, to exert a sense of order, to explore a personal connection, to tell the story of a place and time, or to preserve what may be lost or nostalgia?

Artists and makers often look to the natural world for inspiration, for processes, materials, textures and forms, its rhythms and patterns, its vulnerability and its endurance and this exhibition seeks to explore what contemporary nature collections might be, what might they mean, what story might they tell?

This exhibition revisits that impulse through a contemporary lens and aims to celebrate and showcase diverse creative responses, exploring the question of what it means to observe, collect, engage and respond to nature in the present day.