17 Spring 2022 Issue 17

Welcome to Issue 17 of the Science Museum Group Journal. Here James Mansell et al explore how audiences can engage with sound objects through listening; Sophie Vohra traces the complex meanings behind commemorative celebrations of the Stockton and Darlington Railway and Efram Sera-Shriar goes back to the original photographic material to re-examine Harry Price’s famous investigation of spiritualist William Hope. Two space objects are discussed in depth – the Black Arrow rocket (by Doug Millard) and the BepiColombo model (by Abigail McKinnon), while Meredith Greiling reflects on curatorial challenges in collecting contemporary transport. An article by Elizabeth Bruton et al focusing on the Zygalski sheet (a tool developed by Polish code-breakers to help crack the Enigma code) gives this achievement deserved attention, while also considering the role of reconstructed objects within exhibitions. The issue is rounded off with two book reviews – Shelly Saggar’s reflections on Jack Davy’s Native Americans in British Museums, and Sara Stradal’s discussion of Volume 16 in the Studies in the Visual Culture of the Middles Ages (edited by Marcia Kupfer, Adam S Cohen and J H Chajes), which explores the visualisation of knowledge.