In a reflective mood
Opening just in time for the school holidays, a new Canterbury Museum exhibition explores the science of reflections and reflected light. Developed by Palmerston North’s Te Manawa Museum of Art, Science and History, Mirror Magic has been touring the country’s museums for the past couple of years.
Billed as going ‘‘beyond the looking glass’’, the hands-on exhibition explores the science behind mirrors, as well as allowing visitors to experiment and explore the ‘‘amazing properties of mirrors in fun and exciting ways’’.
Canterbury Museum educator Anthony Hennig says they are always on the look out for exhibitions that will attracted a wide range of people to the Museum.
He says Mirror Magic has already attracted plenty of interest since it opened on September 12.
‘‘There are two or three of the installations that kids seem to absolutely love. There’s the Vari-angle, which shows how you can alter the number of images shown as you move a mirror between 0 and 180 degrees. Then there’s the Shape Shifter – a big, tall mirror that you can adjust to be either concave or convex. If you turn a handle, you can stretch yourself to be long and tall and squish yourself to be short and squat. Or you can have really, really long legs and a short body. Kids will just sit there for ages looking at how they can manipulate their image in the mirror.’’
In an era where cellphone selfies are more common than mirror use, Hennig says it’s perhaps no surprise to see that it’s the installations where images are distorted that have proved to be most popular. ‘‘There are a couple of hologram ones that are absolutely fascinating too.’’
Described by Hennig as easy to install, Mirror Magic will be on display at Canterbury Museum until November 8.
Mirror Magic