There's a hermit at The Manchester Museum

This is Ansuman Biswas (below) and he's an artist.

Ansuman is going to become the Manchester Hermit and live alone in the Gothic tower in
The Manchester Museum for 40 days and 40 nights.

(More on hermits later...)

All photos © The Manchester Museum

The Manchester Museum is full of amazing prehistoric life and ancient artefacts, including animals and fossils.

Every day during his stay, Ansuman will look at a different object in the Museum's collections (the kind of stuff that's not usually on display for people to see).

Ansuman will then make an artwork based on each object to get us to think about the problems facing animals today like climate change and extinction.

Why not watch the clip about Ansuman on Channel 4 news and see why one boy thought the Hermit should be thinking about whales.

So what are hermits then you ask?

In the 18th century, rich people (landowners) used to pay a hermit - a man - to live alone on their estates.

A hermit was supposed to be like a wise man.

So, when the landowner's friends came to visit, they would go and visit the hermit to hear what he had to say about life.

We're looking forward to hearing what Ansuman Biswas, The Manchester Museum Hermit, has to say about our world and what we're doing to it.

Ansuman will have a blog going, so we'll include the link when it starts... watch this space!