The English Department welcomed Wellington College Prep pupils for a “Mini Cabinet of Curiosities” workshop, where cultural and scientific ‘artefacts’ were explored through poetry and storytelling. Inspired by the ‘cabinet’ as a proto-museum, pupils explored how human perspectives on the natural world have shaped culture and intellectual progress, with curiosity as a guiding thread. Drawing on Dürer’s Rhinoceros, an iconic image that shaped early modern European cultural and scientific imagination, and the hidden networks of fungi as solutions to many contemporary challenges, pupils created their own imaginative “cabinet objects”.
Working in mixed teams, Third Form and Year 8 pupils produced literary responses and an immersive experience. They explored the power of interdisciplinary thinking and evaluated how knowledge is created, circulated and continually redefined.
In the spirit of intellectual play and dialogic exchange, teachers and pupils made discoveries together, reflecting on the relationship between imagination and understanding. The workshop was a joyful and thought-provoking collaboration, capturing the energy, ambition and connected thinking at the heart of a Wellington education.
