FAQS: Exhibits Unit
The new dioramas in the Life Sciences Gallery aren't behind any glass. How do you keep them clean?
It is true that the new open dioramas require a lot of careful and labour-intensive maintenance, but it’s worth it. Without glass as a barrier, visitors often feel like they’ve stepped right into the setting of the exhibit.
Cleaning is a delicate operation, since there are natural (and brittle!) materials as well as fragile hand-made plant and insect replicas in the displays. Anything that’s broken during cleaning must be repaired or replaced. Soft cloths and feathers are used for dusting, a vacuum is sometimes used with miniature attachments, dusty snow and leaves are regularly replaced, the eyes of the animal mounts are brightened up with alcohol swabs, pencil or scuff marks are erased and garbage (like gum wrappers) is removed. There are even insect pests that feed on some of the natural materials in the exhibits, and they must be kept under control. |
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But how do you get at the dioramas to clean them? Using a lot of ingenuity, RSM staff came up with a “gang plank” contraption that is counterbalanced so that a person can climb out onto the plank and work suspended over a diorama. This useful device is built so that the plank can be raised up and down, allowing it to slide overtop of the diorama railings, and then drop down so that the exhibit materials are within arm’s reach. Click here to find out more about how the gang plank works.
For further information contact the Exhibits Unit
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