London’s Natural History Museum will house a new exhibition featuring ‘creatures, specimens and artefacts’ from the Museum’s collection alongside elements from J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World. Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature will open in spring 2020 and ‘showcase creatures from the natural, mythical worlds and the Wizarding World’.
The Museum’s most ambitious exhibition to date, Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature will give visitors the chance to see natural world creatures including a tiger and Galápagos marine iguana as well as ‘Potter’ inspired pieces including an Erumpent horn and the dragon skull from Professor Lupin’s classroom. Parallels between real-word creatures and Fantastic Beasts characters will also be central to the exhibition — visitors will be able to compare the camouflage tactics of a jaguar with that of the mythical Demiguise, as well as the mating rituals of the peacock spider and the Fantastic Beasts Erumpent. The exhibition will also give visitors an opportunity to learn more about Magizoologist Newt Scamander, the protagonist of the Fantastic Beasts films.
A collaboration between London’s Natural History Museum, the BBC and Warner Bros., the new exhibition will pair exhibition objects with ‘spellbinding digital installations and iconic wizarding world elements from the Fantastic Beasts film series’. A companion documentary called Fantastic Beasts: A Natural History (working title) will be narrated by Harry Potter audiobook narrator Stephen Fry and air on BBC One. Bloomsbury and Pottermore Publishing will also produce published companion material related to the exhibition.
Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature will open in the spring of 2020 with a first wave of tickets available from Thursday 16 January. You can sign up for priority booking over at the National History Museum’s website.