This exhibition was developed and designed to augment Nature Unleashed, a rental exhibit from the Field Museum, Chicago. Our multidisciplinary team decided to focus on wildfires because, as a natural part of our ecosystems, wildfires have shaped life in the West. And as towns and suburbs grow, more of us live next door to fire-prone wildlands.
This challenging project was intended to flow naturally with the existing elements within Nature Unleashed, while still standing out as a local story. We used large graphics, a unique color palette and dimensional cutouts of local firefighters to create a stirring and active space.
Three interactive tables allowed visitors to explore landscape change in Utah; create wildfires by selecting different environments, fuel sources, and weather patterns; and watch an animation of vegetation recovery after fire. We included cases of objects from our collections and we constructed a burnt cabin to emphasis the importance of fire-wise structures.
