Event Blog 3: Natural History Museum

 Living Knowledge: BioArt and The Two Cultures at the LA Natural History Museum

   

    When I visited the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, I wasn’t just there to look at bones, minerals, or insects, I was stepping into a space where the “Two Cultures” of science and the humanities not only coexist, but collaborate. The museum, with its exhibits ranging from taxidermized mammals to immersive digital experiences, stands as a powerful example of what  we've learned of the “Third Culture”: here there is an ever evolving conversation where art, and science merge to create new better understanding of the natural world, our current place in it, and the times before we walked earth.

Walking through the dinosaur halls and and the gemstone displays, I was struck by how carefully aesthetic design is used to communicate complex scientific ideas. The museum isn’t just about information, it’s about feeling wonder as well. There's a split between the artistic and scientific, NHM offers itself as a model for reunifying them through experience. The building itself is a beautiful work of art with with dramatic art-deco era pillars and statues mixed with modern installations and research zones that were semi-recently added on to the pre-existing structure. 

    

    The NHM reminded me of our module on bio art. We read in the module about how artists who challenge biological classifications through living media, slime molds, genetically modified organisms, tissue cultures. Though NHM doesn’t explicitly display bioart, its exhibits hint at this boundary-blurring: microscopic ecosystems are presented as both data and design, and the visual storytelling is inseparable from the science itself.

    Above is one of the newer exhibitions at NHMLA put in place to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the museum's historic diorama halls. It features immersive installations that highlight dioramas as a unique blend of art and science, it exploring themes of biodiversity, ecology, conservation, and showcases evolving museum display techniques. 

    My visit helped me think differently about my final project, it's allowing me to consider how I could go about treating scientific discovery and visual culture not as separate tools, but rather see them as fundamentally interconnected. Like the museum, I want my work to bridge fields (not to simplify them), but to show how complexity itself can be beautiful.

    Would I recommend NHM? Absolutely. If you’re interested in the natural world, our earths history and how art helps us feel what science reveals—there’s no better place.

Images

1. Taken in main hall

2-4.All taken at the NHM

5. https://news.epson.com/news/los-angeles-natural-history-museum-projectors?utm_source 

6. Photo I took of my entrance band 

References

Levy, Ellen K. Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications. BioArt, 2006. [PDF accessed via class materials].

Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge University Press, 1959. https://archive.org/details/twoculturesscien00snowrich.

Vesna, Victoria. "Toward a Third Culture: Being in between." Leonardo, vol. 34, no. 2, 2001, pp. 121–125. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1576804.

Wilson, Stephen. Art + Science Now: How Scientific Research and Technological Innovation Are Becoming Key to 21st-Century Aesthetics. Thames & Hudson, 2010.
Google Books, https://books.google.com/books/about/Art_Science_Now.html?id=x4TJX7vVLXYC.

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. NHMLA, https://nhm.org.

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “Reframing Dioramas.” NHMLA, https://nhm.org/pst-reframing-dioramas.

“Epson Projectors Help Light Up Los Angeles’ Natural History Museum.” Epson Newsroom, 19 Oct. 2023, https://news.epson.com/news/los-angeles-natural-history-museum-projectors?utm_source.