GALLERY | FLOOR 2
Research Gallery
A space for research collaboration and displays that tackle some of our most pressing issues.
Our reasons for and ways of researching are as unique as each of us. We support all researchers from academic to independent to community. Manchester Museum is one of the UKs largest university museums and is proud to be part of the University of Manchester. This gallery provides a space for a wide range of researchers to present ideas, explore important topics and ask questions of us all.
Current Display
The Artefacts of Prediction: Imagining Tomorrow
2 December 2025 – 28 June 2026
From tarot cards and uranium glass to paper dresses and futuristic games, Artefacts of Prediction: Imagining Tomorrow explores how people over the past 100 years have tried to glimpse, design, or control what comes next.
Throughout the 20th century and into our own time, the future has been imagined through science and superstition, through data, design, and dreams. Each artefact in this exhibition captures a moment of speculation – when the future felt close enough to touch. Some visions were strikingly accurate but others, now, seem strange or impossible. Together they reveal our shared desire to make sense of uncertainty and to give shape to what lies ahead.
Drawing on objects from science, fashion, design, and popular culture, this exhibition invites you to consider how ideas about tomorrow reflect the hopes, fears, and technologies of their time – and how our own predictions will one day become artefacts of the past.
