Exhibitions
MERL runs a varied programme of temporary exhibitions throughout the year in the dedicated temporary exhibition space off the main reception area, and smaller displays showcasing collections from the MERL archives and the Univeristy's Special Collections in the beautiful staircase hall.
Click on the link to read about the current staircase hall display, Hugh Sinclair: academic and nutrionist (12 April to 7 June, 2012)
Current exhibition
- Playing fields: Our Sporting Life in the countryside
12 May to 16 September, 2012
Looking forward to the 2012 Olympics, MERL is participating in Our Sporting Life, a nationwide network of community exhibitions marking through photographs, stories and objects the story of Great British Sport. Our exhibition on rural sports - including those that changed the world and one or two that didn't - will complement a display on local sports at the Museum of Reading.
For full details of the exhibition visit Playing fields: Our Sporting Life in the countryside page.
Online exhibitions
- Farmer and Stockbreeder collection
- People of the Thames
- Rural Crafts Today
- 50th Anniversary
- Hidden Collections
- Gypsy Life
- Livestock in Art
- William Simmonds
- Agricultural Glass Negatives Preservation Project
- MERL's Internet Farm and Countryside Explorer (INTERFACE)
- New Technologies
Previous exhibitions
2012
Justin Partyka has been photographing rural East Anglia for over a decade, exploring the diverse lives of rabbit catchers, reed cutters and small-scale farmers. The identities of these forgotten people of the flatlands are enriched by their close relationships with the landscape. In an age when industrial agriculture dominates, Partyka's photographs challenge contemporary ideas and capture a marginal way of life.
For full details of the exhibition and related events, including Project Berkshire visit Field Work: photographs from East Anglia.
Some of the Field Work photographs will continue to be displayed around the main museum gallery until the end of the summer.
2011
- Everyday stories of country folk: Celebrating 60 years of The Archers and MERL, 1951-2011
- Land ladies: women and farming in England, 1900-1945
- The Future of Things Past
2010
- Farming for the New Britain: images of farmers in war and peace
Until 22 December, 2010 - A circle and a century: panoramic photographs of Reading from the 1890s and today
- Looking at Landscape: colours and contours
- Village Voices
- The art and craft of Sutton's
2009
2008
It is now possible to see the films and craft pieces from this exhibition in the main museum gallery.
2007
- Small World: scale models and miniatures from the MERL collections
- Going Green: Sustainability past, present and future
- Julie Roberts: Sculptural paper
- Personal Expressions: Photographic images by Young Derbyshire Farmers
- Rural Relics: Old farm buildings of Kent, Surrey and Sussex
2006
- Suttons Seeds: 1806-2006
- Action Women: the real story of the Women's Institutes
- Faces of the South Downs: A photographic diary by Anne Purkiss