Open House and Summer Preview Hours

People of all ages are invited to visit Amuseum Naturalis at The Old House this Sunday from 9am to noon. St. Martin’s free museum of nature, history and culture is celebrating the launch of its summer preview with an open house event.

Amuseum Naturalis is a museum dedicated to sharing all that is unique about St. Martin. It was developed by the non-profit association Les Fruits de Mer. During 2016 and 2017, it was located in Grand Case. The association is relaunching and expanding the Amuseum at the historic Old House in French Quarter.

“Right now, everyone is looking for fun stuff to do—especially parents and kids,” explained Les Fruits de Mer President Jenn Yerkes. “We decided to do a summer preview so people can start enjoying the Amuseum, even while we continue to develop it.”

The summer preview includes an exhibit hall with eight exhibits. Visitors will discover fascinating displays on topics like animals found only on St. Martin, traditional building techniques and the tree with the hardest wood in the world. They can also see projects in progress, like the Amuseum’s bush tea garden.

The open house is Sunday, July 22nd from 9am to noon. Following the open house, the Amuseum will be open Monday to Friday from 9am to noon during July and August. Admission to the Amuseum is free. Schools and youth groups are invited to contact Les Fruits de Mer to arrange a group visit.

Amuseum Naturalis at The Old House is located in French Quarter at the top of the hill above Le Galion.

Amuseum Updates!

The relaunch of Amuseum Naturalis has been progressing in many ways. Our volunteer days have been getting more and more busy with loads of people coming out to help. Luckily, we have plenty of work to do! Here’s a short video from Saturday:

Our next clean-up is Saturday, March 24th from 9am to noon with a BBQ after. Please come by! You can also invite friends via Facebook.

We’ve also been going gangbusters on our March fundraising campaign. In the first week, we raised over $8,000 from 69 generous donors. This campaign continues through March 30th, so please join us! Or send an email to someone who might want to help—it works! 91% of the people that donated recevied an email from someone about the project. Click here to see the project page, learn more and donate!

Unstuckable!

We came across a bunch of photos that had gotten stuck together after getting wet. What can you do with a brick of old photos? Can they be saved? After Hurricane Irma, maybe you’ll want to watch this video to save some of your memories. Unstuckable! is the latest in our series of Amuseum Naturalis how-to videos.

Yard Clean-ups

As we prepare to launch Amuseum Naturalis at The Old House, we’ve held a series of clean-up events with volunteers from Les Fruits de Mer. The progress has been astounding and we are really proud of what this team has done. After several years without upkeep and one of the worst hurricanes on record, the place was a jungle. Today, it’s starting to look like the right place to tell the stories of St. Martin.

Check out some videos from our clean-ups and be sure to join in at the next one! Look us up on Facebook for coming volunteer events.

Special Exhibit Launch Party

Tuesday was the last Mardi de Grand Case street fair of the season, and also the launch party for our new special exhibit: Women, People of Color, and the Making of Natural History in the Caribbean. We were delighted to have over 600 visitors to the museum for this special event! If you didn’t make it, you can check out the exhibit Tuesdays and Thursdays between 4-8pm until May 2nd, or at the 2017 Endemic Animal Festival on Sunday, April 23rd from 9am-3pm. The exhibit was made possible by a grant from Be the Change SXM. Visit their site to learn how you can support great projects on St. Martin.

New Paintings at the Amuseum

We are lucky to have some gorgeous new paintings at the Amuseum thanks to Sélénia Sanner. Now, each of the exhibits in our main room has a companion painting, and they are gorgeous. The concept was to have paintings related to the theme of each exhibit at ground level in the Amuseum to capture the imagination of our youngest guests. In fact, they are an amazing addition for all our guests. Here are images of the most recent paintings we added, although photos don’t really do them justice so please visit the Amuseum to see them in person!

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