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Unpath’d Waters on Tour – Summer 2024

Posted: Monday 20th May 2024

Unpath’d Waters is excited to announce a touring exhibition from May to September 2024 at various locations around the UK and the Isle of Man. Get a glimpse of what the project has already achieved over the last three years, and what may be possible in the future.

Unpath’d Waters is a ground-breaking 3-year research project that aims to connect the UK’s maritime collections. It is one of five Towards a National Collection Discovery Projects awarded a total of £14.5 million by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Their exhibition programme will comprise a tour by the Maritime Archaeology Trust’s Discovery Bus and a series of static displays organised by the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich on the dates below, with the first display at the Cutty Sark in Greenwich from 27^th May followed by Chatham Historic Dockyard from 10^th June. The Discovery Bus will first stop at the Time and Tide Museum in Great Yarmouth on 26^th July.

Using Virtual Reality headsets, the audience can dive into the Unpath’d Waters Navigator at some of our exhibition sites to experience multiple heritage datasets displayed in a fully immersive virtual environment. Audiences are able to explore stories within these datasets through a series of ‘Curated Voyages’ on a range of themes. The Navigator and Curated Voyages have been co-designed with three underrepresented audiences: cross-disciplinary researchers, people with visual impairment, and non-coastal communities. (The Navigator will not be available at the Cutty Sark)

The Doggerland Simulator will give access to this submerged prehistoric landscape beneath the North Sea. The simulator allows users to see the development of the landscape over thousands of years and appreciate what it would have been like to live in Doggerland as the sea levels changed around them.

To make submerged and museum-displayed wrecks even more exciting by creating new ways of imagining, understanding and valuing them, Maritime Archaeology Trust (MAT) has developed the Needles Voyager, an innovative way to digitally explore the fascinating world of shipwrecks and maritime sites that can be found off the western point of the Isle of Wight.

Visitors can also find out about the Unpathd Waters Portal, a shared and searchable online catalogue of 100,000 marine data records from all parts of the UK which have been brought together for the first time and made publicly accessible.

In addition, the audience will also learn about a new database Historic England is developing to record marine and maritime heritage in England.

Several other locations will also be displaying information banners with QR code links to the project outputs.

Discovery Bus tour dates

Time and Tide Museum, Great Yarmouth – 26-27 July

National Museum of the Royal Navy, Hartlepool – 29-30 July

Discovery Point, Dundee – 2-3 August

Scottish Maritime Museum, Irvine Museum – 5-6 August

House of Manannan, Isle of Man – 9-11 August

Static Display dates

England

Cutty Sark, Greenwich – 27 May-5 June (Doggerland Simulation on display only)

Chatham Historic Dockyard – 10-28 June