A facial reconstruction exhibition featuring facial depictions co-curated and co-produced by Director Prof Caroline Wilkinson and Dr Maria Castaneyra-Ruiz, a visiting postdoctoral fellow, from LJMU Face Lab, is to be exhibited in a Canarian Museum in Las Palmas.

Face Lab, directed by Professor Caroline Wilkinson, focuses on the digital creative agenda. Specifically, Face Lab explores faces and art-science applications. Dr Maria Castaneyra-Ruiz represents the first local anthropologist to produce facial depictions of the Guanche population.

The exhibit will open at 7pm on Thursday 13 December and will present 50 facial reconstructions of Guanche remains, who are 6th to 15th century indigenous Canarians from  cave burials. The exhibition will also feature a Guanche mummy housed in the museum’s skeletal collection room.

The exhibition was financially supported by the Canarian Government and LJMU. This is the most extensive exhibition of facial depictions from the same archaeological population ever, anywhere in the world, and the first time that a Guanche mummy has been presented in 4D, with animation.

The display will also be exhibited alongside 50 portraits of contemporary Canarians, produced by Francesca Phillips – an ethnographic photographer, and several facial averages produced from the ancient population.

The craniofacial computer system has previously been employed to analyse, authenticate and/or depict the faces of key historical figures, such as Richard III, Robert the Bruce and Mary Queen of Scots.