5 November 2026 – 29 August 2027
ST Lee Gallery, Weston Library
“Plain Things Wonders tells the story of how paying attention to nature can make plain things into wonders.
Marking 400 years since the publication of Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum (1626), the exhibition unfolds histories of citizen science, lay participation in natural observation, and how projects like Robert Hooke’s Micrographia (1665) and Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selbourne (1789) discover wonder in plain things.
The exhibition connects the science of natural history with the art of illustration, attention and visualisation. It asks how book art makes the ordinary stuff of nature beautiful, and how the long history of observation links with modern ecological challenges.
Throughout the exhibition, the link between nature, art, science, and books is blurred: the exhibition shows poems, works, and books made by artists which take ordinary observation and make it extraordinary, including works by Tom Phillips, Helen Douglas, Daniel & Clara, Alice Oswald, and Tessa Farmer, among others.
Come and embrace the opportunities to notice the plain things of the natural world in your everyday life.'“
https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/2026/oct/plain-things-wonders
An encounter with a woodlouse while making ‘Love Letter to a Rotting Log’ , new work in the exhibition.