Against Nature?

Sexual orientation

Against Nature? is a controversial exhibition on homosexuality in animals made by The Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Norway. The exhibition focuses on occurrence and function of homosexuality in animals, and is the first of its kind.

The exhibit contains pictures, animals and models of species known to engage in homosexuality, showing among other things southern right whales and giraffes engaged in same-sex pairing. The museum says one of its aims is to "help to de-mystify homosexuality among people... we hope to reject the all too well known argument that homosexual behaviour is a crime against nature." Most of the exhibition is based on the works of Bruce Bagemihl and Joan Roughgarden.

The exhibition was initiated by ABM, the Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority as part of their "Break" program, encouraging museums, libraries and archives to do research and exhibitions of controversial and taboo subjects. The exhibition is a direct answer to this challenge, and has received financial support from ABM.

The exhibition ran from September 2006 to August 2007. It was well received, including by the museums regular visiting groups, mainly families [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6066606.stm] . Several other natural history museums have expressed interest in the exhibition, including Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia, and the exhibition is currently on tour.

External links

* [http://www.nhm.uio.no/againstnature/index.html Against Nature? exhibition in Oslo]
* [http://www.nhm.uio.no/ Natural History Museum, Oslo]