At 5pm on Sunday January 6, 2008, California Academy of Sciences closed its temporary location in order to start the move back to Golden Gate Park. On September 27, 2008 the Academy will open to the public once again in its new home in the Park. Many curious museum-goers have asked, why the long gap between closing and opening? 265 days is long time to move across town.

What is on the public floors of the museum is just the tip of the iceberg of the Academy’s collections. Over a span of more than 150 years, the Academy has built an invaluable collection that acts as a strong backbone for the museum. Twenty million research specimens and 38,000 live animals have to be carefully packed and transported. The Academy is undertaking the most massive move ever undertaken by a museum.

The Botany collection was the first to move out of Howard Street. It took only eleven and a half days to move two million specimens. For perspective, it took 61,300 cardboard inserts bundled with over 40 miles of twine to bundle the flora. Botany is only one of eight Academy research departments preparing to move.

The Academy’s packing list is as varied as its research. Ornithology and Mammalogy have to transport Monarch, the last Grizzly bear of California. Because of its size and girth, it will not be boxed. However, it will take several movers to transport it carefully. Monarch will be joined by 30,000 other mammal specimens, including study pelts, skulls, skeletons, and the world’s largest collection of marine mammal specimens.

It will be even more challenging to move the Academy’s live animals. 38,000 live animals will be moved, water included, back to the Park in tanks of varying sizes. One of the aquarium’s Australian Lungfish will be the oldest living animal to move. Over seventy years old, this fish has seen the Academy through many changes– a move to Howard Street, and now the move back to Golden Gate Park.

The Academy’s Galápagos collection will also be packed up. It features thousands of Geospizine Finches (the group studied by Darwin) and the world’s largest collection of reptiles from the Galápagos.

Cultural keepsakes will be preserved. Pre-Columbian Inca clothing, 12th Century Persian ceramics, fragile feather leis, full-sized Native Alaskan kayaks, 500 Japanese folk toys, and a renowned collection of eating utensils will also find their home in Golden Gate Park.

To give you a sense of the immensity of the project, 20 million specimens include the following:

• Over 200,000 fish specimens preserved in alcohol, including a rare coelacanth (thought to be extinct until discovered in the 1930s);
• 14.5 million insects and arachnids, including more than 874,789 flies, some 524,666 true bugs, nearly 3 million beetles, and more than 700,000 butterflies and moths;
• Nearly 100,000 bird specimens, including the now-extinct Guadalupe Storm Petrel and 10,600 sets of bird nests and eggs;
• More than a quarter of a million reptiles and amphibians from 166 countries.

The sheer volume of this move makes it a migration. Over 20 million specimens can not be moved in a day. It will take every one of those 265 days to move and prepare to share the wealth of the Academy once again with the public. To find out more about this “Great Migration” and the museum that will ultimately house the collections – visit http://www.calacademy.org/newacademy.

Cat Aboudara is the Special Projects Manager at California Academy of Sciences and works in the public programs division. The Academy is a wonderful fit for her because of her curiosity about the natural world and her experience in working with native California wildlife.

latitude: 37.769, longitude: -122.467

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science.” - Albert Einstein

Photo credit: Dr. Richard Mooi

It is not often that the public is able to see the components and care that go into creating a museum exhibit. However the California Academy of Sciences hosted a lecture on Tuesday, From the Depths: Creating a Science and Art Exhibit at the Academy, which delved into why the creation of an art exhibit at a science museum has been such a meaningful project for both painter Tiffany Bozic and Dr. Rich Mooi, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology at the Academy.

Both Bozic and Mooi grew up surrounded by the natural world and remain passionate about exploring it today. Bozic grew up on a farm in Arkansas where she was involved with animals every day. Throughout her career, she has drawn on the natural world to create a dialogue about a universal human condition, often expressing her ideas through animal imagery. Mooi began sketching early in life in the forested areas outside of his home in Ontario and has continued to paint and illustrate all his life. He views illustration as a tool to capture complex processes, like how minute currents travel along a sea urchin’s spines — a process that cannot be adequately captured with photography or other media.

Fine art often raises questions and allows people to look inward, while science is tasked with solidifying answers and methods. But rather than focus on differences between the two fields, Bozic and Mooi are excited by the commonalities they share. During the lecture on creating the exhibit, each demonstrated how they are inspired by both science and art. Though photos don’t do the actual paintings justice, here’s a taste of what’s on display: http://www.calacademy.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=13658.

In listening to the lecture and talking with Bozic and Mooi afterwards, both stressed how important and unusual the “dialogue” between art and science is. They are each fascinated by the beauty found in the natural world, though they work with it in unique ways: one opens it up to interpretation, while the other clarifies its ambiguities.

What they found working together on this art installation was a deep commonality. Bozic related how they were both just completely blown away by the vast number and diversity of specimens in the Academy’s collections. It was like being a five year old again and exploring. Mooi added that both artists and scientists share a love and appreciation of objects. So much detail goes into working with specimens — both the artist and scientist must have a passionate drive to work with such intricacies. Both Bozic and Mooi feel their work is fueled by inspiration and awe.

They expect that many questions will arise among people viewing From the Depths. As visitors go through the art installation, they will also observe the process of what inspired the exhibit in the first place, and perhaps wonder about the relationship between science and art. It will open the visitor up to appreciating the beauty of nature, and the need to convey that beauty. Art and science are just two perspectives of conveying nature: one by questioning and the other by answering, but both open up new worlds.

Mooi ended our talk with a reminder of how much there is to observe and learn among the millions of real objects within the walls of the California Academy of Sciences. These real things in and of themselves are objects to be appreciated, and this art installation puts them in the limelight as things of beauty, similar to Bozic’s paintings.

To join in on the process, come to the opening reception of From the Depths: Inspiring Science and Art on Thursday, November 15th from 5pm to 9pm. The exhibit will be open from November 15, 2007 to January 6, 2008 when the Academy’s Howard Street location closes.

Cat Aboudara is the Special Projects Manager at California Academy of Sciences and works in the public programs division. The Academy is a wonderful fit for her because of her curiosity about the natural world and her experience in working with native California wildlife.

latitude: 37.7819, longitude: -122.404