Overview
The little blighters may be small, but they're engineered works of genius. Te Papa sets out to explore how, in their brand-new immersive exhibition Bug Lab.
A collaborative effort between Te Papa and Weta Workshop, the exhibition took little over six months to come together. Te Papa's Head of Design Ben Barraud and Exhibition Creative Director and co-founder of Weta Workshop Richard Taylor orchestrated a team to pull the concepts together within the space, which opened on the tenth of December. The resulting atmosphere within the space is electric: a design aesthetic dubbed "bug nouveau," a space where there are no straight lines in the intricately produced chambers, designed to look as though they were wrought by the bugs themselves.
The space is an undeniably colourful, theatrical marvel in which children can immerse themselves in learning about bugs from large-scale models, scientific experiment stations and interactive displays. Each hair is rendered accurately, every thorax immense enough to examine in great detail. The soundscape is ethereal, an emotive complement to your surroundings (composed of such sounds as a dry paintbrush sweeping over leaves in order to bring to mind the creatures' natural habitats).
Four chambers smattered across the space are the focal points of the exhibition: iridescent, glimmering bubbles which house creatures remarkable for their biological engineering: whether it be brain surgery, team work or mastering flight. It makes for an incredible bio-inspiration story, a look into how scientists are now taking cues from these insects' innovation. Take the dragonfly, for example: their wings are now inspiring drone engineers across the world. Viewers can witness a dragonfly in flight within one of the four wildly different chambers.
The science behind Bug Lab comes from Te Papa entomologist Dr Phil Sirvid, television "bug man" Ruud Kleinpaste, and University of Canterbury spider scientist Dr Simon Pollard.
The exhibition opens on Saturday 10 December 2016 and closes Monday 17 April 2017 (Easter Monday). After Wellington, Bug Lab will make its way to Melbourne, and then on to Asia and the USA.
Ticket prices are $15 for adults and $5 for children, with concession and family tickets also available. Find out more about the Bug Lab at Te Papa's website here.