The Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, Lewisham. Pic: Julian Osley (CC BY-SA 2.0)

A museum in South East London is looking to raise £9,500 to fund an exhibition of paintings of unseen taxidermied animals and artefacts.

The Horniman Museum and Gardens is seeking donations to fund the Collected and Possessed exhibition by British artist Mark Fairnington.

Fairnington has been exploring the museum’s hidden storage and painting the objects he has found, which the public will be able to see during the exhibition.

Alongside the exhibition, Fairnington will be offering themed gifts including tote bags, scarves, and prints of his work for donors contributing a minimum of £5 to the crowd funding venture.

Hannah Bishop, Fundraising and Membership Assistant at the Horniman Museum, described the project with Art Fund, a charity supporting galleries and museums, as a “positive experience”.

“We worked with the Art Fund previously on Museum of the Year in 2013 and had seen the launch of Art Happens, their exciting new crowdfunding platform. They approached us and asked if we’d like to submit a proposal for a project for the platform which we did!”

To help raise funds for Fairnington’s exhbition, Art Fund created a crowd funding platform called Art Happens, which previously raised money for Jerwood Gallery and the Norwich Castle Museum.

Jo Hatton, keeper of the Natural History Department at the Horniman Museum, said: “This is the first time that Art Happens has raised money for a London exhibition, and we’re hoping that Londoners will be as generous as people in other regions have been, so that we can bring to light the hidden world of the Horniman’s stored collections, alongside Mark’s stunning paintings.”

Scott Kier, 38, of Brockley said: “Mark’s work looks great and I like the idea of revealing some of what’s in the museum store.”

The Horniman Museum was originally founded by Fredrick John Horniman, the heir to Horniman’s Tea, as an outlet for his passion for collecting. The museum initially opened with a collection of 30,000 items with artistic, musical and natural history themes.

The Horniman Museum needs to raise a total of £9,500 by April 28 to launch the Collected and Possessed exhibition, and have raised £5890 so far. Donations can be made here.