The Scottish Maritime Museum (Denny Tank) in Dumbarton delves deep into Scotland's forgotten history of industrial whaling in ‘All mortal greatness is but disease’.
The exhibition, whose title is taken from Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’, explores how industrial whaling pushed some species almost to extinction and, in the Antarctic alone, led to the killing of nearly 1.6 million whales between 1900-1960.
Though an audio installation, photographs, artworks, artefacts and textiles drawn from the Scottish Maritime Museum’s collection and on loan from the South Georgia Heritage Trust and the Scottish Fisheries Museum, the exhibition focuses on Scotland’s substantial but largely forgotten contribution to this industry and the Scots for whom whaling provided an unrivalled opportunity for prosperity and adventure.
The exhibition concludes with a look at whaling across the globe today.
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Scottish Maritime Museum: Dumbarton
Scottish Maritime Museum, 12 Castle Terrace, Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire, G82 1QY
01389 763444
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Mon - Sat, 10am-4pm
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