At the Bruce Museum, a Climate Change Exhibit Inspired by Alaska

This article is part of the special section of our museums on how artists and institutions are adapting to changing times.

Daniel Ksepka, the science curator at the Bruce Museum here, visited Fairbanks, Alaska, in May 2022 for a research project on fossil birds. But Ksepka, a paleontologist by training, was more attracted to the drunk forest of the city, an unusual landscape of inclined trees, on the other hand.

“The trees bowed in seemingly random directions because the permafrost under the ground was defrosted by more and more warm temperatures,” he said. “They collapsed as results of not having a firm base. It almost felt like being in a bomb crater.”

Ksepka said the stage illustrates the dramatic impact of global warming and affected it deeply. “I couldn’t take my eyes off my head,” he said. “At home, I began to investigate other ways in which climate change is shaping the Alaska landscape through the destabilization of permafrost, changing vegetation patterns and ice loss.”

That trip and the drunk forest are the impetus for Bruce’s exhibition “on thin ice: Alaska’s heating heater”, cured by Ksepka. He opened on March 6 and will be in sight until October 19.

“It made a lot of sense to focus specifically on Alaska because it is on the front line in terms of climate change,” Ksepka said, in telephone and video interviews. “Research has documented that air temperatures in Alaska are increasing double that in other parts of the United States.”

According to Ksepka, what happens in Alaska will affect everyone no matter where they live because their “permafrost stores large amounts of unimagnerable carbon.”

Taxidermia animals in the exhibition – 17 in total – represent the wild life that lives in the Alaska desert and are the star attraction of “thin ice”. “I wanted to show some of the animals threatened by global warming because they trust these habitats to survive,” Ksepka said. “They also provide an emotional component to the damage it causes.”

A Combination of Pieces From The Bruce’s Permanent Collection and Loans From The Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium in Saint Johnsbury, vt., The Animals include Brown Muskox, Gnarly-Look Createure Covered in Shaggy Hair Whamt Shams Shams and Aa Bison and a bise Bison and a bison and a bison and a bison and a bison and a bison and a bison, and a bison, and a bison, and a bison, and a bison, and a bison and a bison, and a bison, and a bison, and a bison, and a bison, and a bison and a bison and a bison, and a bison. White skin color to a grayish brown, depending on the time of year.

The most majestic animal can be Charlie, a polar bear donated to Bruce by SeaWorld in 2019 after his death. With a weight of 948 pounds, Charlie is emblematic of the Arctic, said Ksepka. “When you think of Alaska or any other Arctic environment, polar bears come to mind,” he said.

On an afternoon from Monday to recent Friday, a small crowd, including school groups, families with young children and couples, studied the parade of wildlife and stopped to take photos of their favorites. Charlie drew “Oohs and Aahs.”

Roberta Tunick, a retired editorial that lives in Greenwich and is regular from the museum, was among the attendees and brought her three young grandchildren. She said she wanted to educate them on the environment in an attractive way. “They are fascinated by animals and ask me questions about them,” he said. “I am reading a lot about climate change, and this exhibition gives it life.”

The landscape models where animals live are also part of the show.

“One of the things I love to do in the exhibitions is to look at things of different scales, because it helps you tell a more convincing story that viewers can understand,” Ksepka said. “Landscape models illustrate surprising phenomena such as the ‘gold’ of the impressive forests of abdominals and birch due to climatic factors such as forest fires.”

Bruce’s exhibition artist Sean Murtha created representations using materials such as plaster, clay, paint and epoxy resin.

Charlie poses, for example, next to a strip of sea ice because polar bears look for food unemployed on him and ambush the seals when they reach the surface to breathe.

In another example, Tundra Lobo is shown next to the famous Harry Potter Lake, in northern Alaska. “The lake was exhausted in a single day in 2022 due to the fusion permafrost, and many animals, including the Tundra wolf, trusted him for drinking water,” Ksepka said.

As for the fetus and birch forest model, several animals, such as the black bear, the elice and snow racket, call it home.

Judging by the line of children who wait impatiently to play with the interactive screens included in “On Thin ICE”, the youngest public does not stay out of fun. They can touch the animal skin, identify traces and listen to the sounds of five species: moss, polar bears, claps, arctic fox and caribu.

Like the Bruce, A Growing Number of Museums Are Exploring Climate Change in Their Exhibitions, Said Mallika Talwar, Who Advises On How to Engage Audiences with Climate Change and Is The Deputy Director of Partnerships for The Yale at Yale Program on The School of The Thermate Change and the Life of the Life of the Life of the Life of the Life Thermate changing and the life of the thermate and tostics and the life of the thermate and the thumb and togestry and therapication and the thighs and westry and togestry and togestry and tosty and tostry and togestry and tel and therm and therm and the yale Things, things and things and things and things.

“We have discovered that many Americans because learning about climate change through visiting museums because museums are a reliable source of information in a low cost era,” he said. “An increasing number, including those that focus on art and history, feel the responsibility of communicating on the subject as the impacts of you wars.”

Talwar cited a 2020 survey conducted in collaboration between the Yale and The Wild Center program, a Natural History Museum in Tupper Lake, New York, or its museum attendees. The results found that a majority too worried about climate change and led to the ongoing show of the Wild Center, “climatic solutions.”

Other exhibitions on the subject are increasingly frequent. They include “Climate of Hope”, in the Museum of Natural History of Utah, which deepens climate change in the state, and “heroes of climate action” in the National Museum of Children in Washington, DC, which uses a Gamel game superpower. Help the child “” “

Climate change exhibitions may not be new, but their reach has changed, according to Stephanie Shapiro, co -founder and managing director of the Environment and Culture, a non -profit organization that advises and collaborates to accountant. “They have continued their legs for at least a decade, but today they are much more common and expansive,” he said. Shapiro said that many, such as the “climate of hope”, have an eye in the local environment, while the largest museums generally put a lens in global warming as a whole.

He added that climate change exhibitions are also more action oriented than in the past: “their objective not only educates, but to inspire people to take measures to be bad.”

Until that time, “thin ice” ends with a digital interactive screen in which visitors can promise an action to reduce their carbon footprint. They can choose to mount a Drive bicycle setting, for example, eat a vegetarian meal a week to save a significant amount of carbon per year or buy an electric car.

Kspeka said the screen is intended to illustrate how anyone can play a role to minimize environmental damage. “Collectively, all our efforts will be added,” he said.