Building Exhibits: Life Sciences Gallery: Treehouse with a View
The Ideas Stage
The impressive rainforest exhibit in the Life Sciences Gallery was dreamed up in the late 1980s when RSM curators met with Blair Fraser, the gallery designer, to discuss the content of the new Gallery. While the exhibits were to focus on Saskatchewan's ecological regions, the curators decided it was important to include the habitats outside of Saskatchewan where some migrating animals spend half of each year. Al Smith, a naturalist with the Canadian Wildlife Service, had just visited Costa Rica and suggested an exhibit based on its tropical rainforests, since many Saskatchewan songbirds go there during the winter. They agreed that the exhibit should show the forest canopy (treetops) where the birds spend most of their time.
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The designer suggested creating a display that would give the visitors a feeling of being in a tree-house platform, half way up in the forest canopy, looking out across the expanse of the rainforest. Creating this sense of height required a two-storey high space. Fortunately, such a space already existed in the RSM at the logical location in the layout plan. It merely had to be adapted to this new purpose. |
Field Trips, Research and Blueprints
The next step was to make a field trip to Costa Rica and find an exact location that would translate well to the exhibit space. In 1990, the RSM's ornithologist, Paul James, and the designer met up with staff at the National Museum in Costa Rica. The Costa Rican ornithologist suggested they go to Rara Avis (meaning "rare bird"), an ecological preserve northwest of San Jose, high up in the mountains. Rara Avis was very remote, and there were two rivers and many fallen trees in their way. They got stuck several times, and had to lay tree branches down to give the wheels some traction in the mud. After a bone-jarring, 5-hour tractor ride, they finally reached a majestic gorge with two waterfalls and an expanse of forest. There, they found a place where researchers had set up a rudimentary tram (basically a bucket and cables) from which to study the canopy birds. After spending time suspended over the spectacular gorge in the tram, there was no question in their minds that this was the place.
Back in Regina, the designer created a more detailed design for the space, including a large tree trunk and branches that the platform would sit in. Curators then chose which bird species would be featured in the exhibit.
In 1998, the designer and exhibit specialist, Colin Longpre, and diorama painter, Dwayne Harty, went back to Rara Avis to get detailed information for the creation of the background and foreground. They decided to walk this time, which actually turned out to be easier and faster than taking the tractor. Now, there was a 1.8 metre by 3 metre tree-top platform at Rara Avis from which to study canopy birds. It was 30 metres up, and it took about 20 minutes for each person, using mountain climbing gear, to inch his way up a long rope to the top. The artist spent 3 days up in the tree, creating sketches and taking notes. The designer collaborated with the exhibits technician and artist to decide what elements would be included in the diorama. They also took video footage and photographs of the surroundings that would be used later to replicate the plants and all of the details in the exhibit foreground.
After returning to Regina, Ghisselle Maria Alvarado Quesada, an ornithologist from the National Museum in Costa Rica, came to visit the RSM. She brought with her specimens such as a sloth, a toucan, parrots, and other birds from her museum, to be used in the exhibit. Taxidermist Rich Loffler began the work of preparing the specimens and giving them the life-like poses that Life Sciences curators had chosen.
Building the Exhibit
Now the work of constructing the exhibit began. A hole was cut halfway up the cement wall for the exhibit entrance (the platform lookout). Colin used his photos and video to make prototypes of the plants, using parts from artificial plants. While Dwayne began the painting, Colin welded together the steel structure for the tree trunk and branches, using 2-inch rods and metal tubing. This required welding together many short pieces in angular patterns to create branches that looked organic and convincing. He also strung electrical wire for the diorama lights through the steel frames of the branches. The frame was then covered over with chicken wire and burlap to create the bulk and shape of the branches and trunk. A final layer of expanding foam was then sprayed over the burlap to create a bark-like surface which was then painted. A faux rock cliff was added in the corner of the diorama. This was a fiberglass cast of a rock face from northern Saskatchewan that Colin and other staff had created earlier.
By this time, Dwayne had almost finished the diorama painting. He captured the breathtaking beauty of the Rara Avis gorge, with a plunging waterfall and dense forest canopy dropping away from view and disappearing into the mist. He skillfully blended the foreground into the painting, and created an amazing illusion of height and distance.
The diorama was now ready for the foliage. Colin worked with a team of volunteers to create the epiphytes (the plants that grow on the branches and bark of the tree) as well as the canopy leaves and palm trees. Volunteers modified artificial tropical plants and painted them to look more realistic, adding dead and stressed leaves, and even the odd bird dropping. After the plants were installed and moss was added to the tree branches, the taxidermy mounts of the birds and other animals were fixed in place.
While nothing can compare to the experience of visiting places like Rara Avis, this exhibit conveys a sense of the majesty of undisturbed tropical rainforests. It also demonstrates how important worldwide ecosystems are to the health of the species that live here in Saskatchewan.
For further information contact the Exhibits Unit