Have you ever wondered about the weird assemblage of stuff at the entrance to the Museum’s Habitats exhibit? You might have even asked “What would possess museum curators to jumble Mastodon bones, giant clam shells, stuffed birds, and a suit of armor together in the same gallery?” The answer lies not in some scientific theory of evolution, but in our own evolving relationship with nature.
Museums are not just interpreters of the past; they are also reflections of society. At 155 years old, the Grand Rapids Public Museum and its predecessors, called the Kent Scientific Institute and the Kent Lyceum of Natural History, has witnessed great changes in both our society and our natural surroundings. The Habitats exhibit is designed to examine the natural world as the Museum has at different points in its own past.
The entrance to the exhibit resembles the Museum as it might have appeared to visitors a century ago. Items are displayed as a “cabinet of curiosities” – a series of bizarre and fascinating objects and specimens from around the world. The only relationship between humans and nature here is that of collector. Items are preserved, pinned, tagged and classified in an attempt to gain understanding about the vastness and wonder of the natural world.
Beyond the elephant tusks we enter the conservationist phase of the Museum, as it looked in the 1930s and 40s. This includes some of the beloved dioramas from the old museum on Jefferson. Here we see an emerging understanding of the interrelationship between plants and animals and their environment. But there is also a lack of understanding of the differences between animal and human behavior. For instance, mommy, daddy, and baby moose all appear together in their diorama. But in nature, a bull moose would rarely be seen with its offspring. The diorama is a reflection of the post-war nuclear families we watched on Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best, as much as a reflection of real animal behaviors in the wild.
The final parts of the exhibit reflect our relationship with nature as it was viewed when these dioramas were built in the 1990s. Here there are no case fronts, so the dioramas open up to include us – recognizing that what we do as humans affects and is effected by the birds and fish, plants and waterways in nature. Each diorama includes evidence of humans: fish hooks, beach paths, shoes and coolers, rotting row boats, and farm implements. There is no pretense that these are pristine environments. These are the places inhabited by plants, animals and humans, all coexisting and competing for space and resources.
The laws of nature are constant, but the ways we view those laws change over time. If the Museum built a new part of this exhibit today, what societal issues would be reflected in the exhibit? How would you portray the relationship between people and the natural world?
- Christian G. Carron, Director of Education, Interpretation and Research
