Fall exhibits at the Field Museum: Biomechanics and Wild Color
This fall, the museum will open two immersive temporary exhibitions to share the natural world with Chicago. Biomechanics: The Machine Inside will return after a national tour to give visitors a peek at the biological engineering that lets animals jump, swim, and fly. Meanwhile, the museum will premiere Wild Color, which will highlight the science behind nature's colors. Both shows are highly immersive and interactive, with lots of photo-worthy moments and experiences for museum-goers of all ages.
Biomechanics, one of the Field Museum’s most popular traveling exhibitions that made its Chicago debut in 2014, will open on September 3. The exhibit gives visitors a closer look into how animals—including humans—move and survive against the crushing forces of gravity, the pressure of water and wind, and the attacks of predators. Visitors will learn through displays and interactives about how the bodies of the animals we love work like machines—for example, visitors can operate a pump to learn how giraffes’ hearts can pump blood all the way up their long necks. The exhibition also gives visitors a chance to learn about animals they might not have heard of before, like luna moths that use their antennae to smell a potential mate from 7 miles away. In addition to highlighting nature itself, each section of the exhibition showcases technological breakthroughs that were inspired by nature’s ingenuity, like Velcro, wind turbines, and chainsaws.
On October 22, Wild Color will transport visitors into an immersive experience with rooms dedicated to different colors of the light spectrum present in the natural world, starting with the colors of the rainbow. Visitors will discover brilliant gems and iridescent minerals, explore the startling hues of animals that glow under ultraviolet light, and learn about a “super black” bird of paradise. The show will include vibrant visuals, large-scale media projections, and soundscapes to create multi-sensory atmospheres, and visitors will be able to see examples of nature's colors, like shimmering, radiant hummingbirds.
For more information, contact press@fieldmuseum.org. Press kits and further exhibition details will be shared later in the year.