Plants from Tranquebar

In 2024 we were a part of the opening of the exhibition ‘Plants from Tranquebar’, which displayed plants and botanical drawings from Tharangambadi dating from the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Created by our project partner, the Natural History Museum of Denmark, the exhibition highlighted Tranquebar’s role as a scientific centre in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In addition to communicating Tranquebar’s botany, the ambition of the exhibition was to increase children and young people’s knowledge and interest in nature and scientific work.

This was especially successful when we brought together pupils from St John’s Elementary School, Hope Foundation School, Muslim Aided School, and Plütschau Elementary School.

The children demonstrated all the talents needed for a future botanist: from plant collection and GPS localisation to conservation, mounting and sewing the dried plants on herbarium sheets, plant identification in Latin and Tamil, pencil drawing and not least: lots of curiosity, focus and engagement.

The photo album below shows both the  children at work and examples of the printed posters that were part of the exhibition itself.

The French Institute of Pondicherry and their three Indian botanists led the workshop, which took place at the Danish-Indian Cultural Centre, run by the Trankebar-India Association and their local partners.

The Trankebar Association hosted the exhibition.