The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes

Hey everyone! This one’s going to be a bit shorter than usual. Those of you who know me know how important my family is to me. So this week got a bit hectic when we were hosting my cousin and his new wife and stepson for a long weekend! As an added bonus, even more family was in town but staying with my grandparents. Things got a bit crazy, and what I was going to do for this week had to get pushed back until things died down. But we did see and do some things that are perfectly nerdy, and very active.

The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes has been in town this summer, and my family all got tickets. Now I don’t have photos from the actual event, because it was expressly forbidden and I actually saw a family get kicked out of the exhibit for breaking that rule. I love you guys, but there is no way I was going to risk it. But I can tell you what to expect.

At the start, you’re given a pad of paper because you’re going to help Sherlock “solve a crime”. This will have something similar in each location.

About the size of a rectangular Post-it pad.

The exhibit was three parts, starting first with pieces from Arthur Conan Doyle’s personal collection. You get to see specimens of anatomical forensics up close and personal that were made close to 100 years ago! It also includes information about many of the forensic techniques and areas of the day, along with several of the inspirations behind both the writing style of Doyle’s works and the men who influenced the creation of Sherlock Holmes himself. The beautiful things about the books is that Doyle was always including every bit of evidence that you needed to solve the crimes on your own, never holding anything back to make Sherlock seem amazing or brilliant when something doesn’t make sense. The fact that Doyle’s books inspired the creation of many of the basic principles of forensic science is a testament to the success of his writing.

There is one part about this section that was frustrating though, and it was the part where you were allowed to practice doing an etching to reveal a secret message when aligned with a piece of paper with boxes cut out of it. It was very difficult to do with the materials provided and at the angle you are expecting. The best work-around I found was to line up the paper, figure out where the holes of the punch-out aligned, and just write it in yourself.

It was an absolute mess.  The work around took time, but was less frustrating in the long run.

The second part is the fun part: Solving the crime! While the collection of the crime scene evidence is rudimentary and everything is laid out for you, the best part is going around and testing Scotland Yard’s theories against your own to figure out the crime. There’s the Slaughterhouse, where there are three machines showing you different styles of blood splatter against a sheet of glass, the Greenhouse where you test for toxins by essentially matching colors and checking an etching against poisonous common plants of the time, a sandy area to check for track patterns, and a Penny Arcade to see how different methods can cause different breaks in a stone bust.

My favorite part of the testing was the blood splatter analysis, but I also know I’m hugely biased towards it. I’ve been a forensics fangirl since I was in middle school, and I even went to a science summer camp based completely around forensics. My specialization? Physics and the interpretation of blood splatter analysis. Weird as it is, I take some serious pride in it.

Not ashamed to admit I have the shape to angle mostly memorized.

My least favorite area was analyzing the track patterns, mostly because it required some outside information and knowledge because the tests weren’t too well designed. Out of the 9 members of our family there, there were only two of us who got it right. But we used completely different methods. I overanalyzed the heck out of it, basing my choice on the difference of wet to dry sand leaving on impressions overtime. My uncle kept it simple and remembered that the area was designed so even kids could figure it out. Even so, you were still able to figure out the mystery even if you couldn’t get it exactly right.

The third area was smaller, a little gift shop and an exhibit on more recent takes on Sherlock in the media. This included the C4-laden jacket from the BBC series where Moriarty makes his first appearance, so I was super excited about that. The merchandise was interesting as well, but you could find cheaper elsewhere.

For all you Ohio natives who are Sherlock Holmes fans, this is a fun experience if you don’t take yourself too seriously and want to see some things never before released from the Doyle estate.I highly recommend going to see it. It’s still at Cosi until September 1st before it starts packing to move on to its next location. After that it’s going to St. Louis, so be sure to catch it while it’s in town! To know where else it is planning to open, you can go to http://sherlockholmesexhibition.com/ to learn more.

This was a lot of fun for every bit of my family that went, and a great way to spend a day out in Columbus. Cosi is one of those places that I love going back to whenever they have anything new, and has a lot of happy memories. Now I don’t have a picture of how awesome I felt after leaving (I got to lift a car. Serious She-Hulk moment), but I would totally go again given the chance.

And it's totally non-profit. Cost of admission is to keep the exhibits and building running.

Love your nerdiness, and don’t be afraid to be active about it. It’s just elementary.