- November 13, 2024 - Biodôme : Behind the scenes at the Biodôme, Secrets of the Biodôme
It’s a dark room, filled with carefully arranged and labeled boxes. We’re in one of the reserves of the Biodôme’s taxidermized animals collection. Several of these boxes were acquired just before the start of the major Biodôme renovation work, at the dawn of the pandemic. Among them, a heritage batch from 1920 was left on the shelves out of harm’s way.
Now’s the time for opening and digging deep into the contents of these boxes, seeking treasures for our upcoming exhibition.
My colleague Nathanielle, who documents and archives this collection, asks me to verify the identification of a specimen, a strange-looking bird with a large beak from the lot labeled “Priests of Saint-Sulpice of Montréal.” Knowing that the Sulpicians undertook missions all over the world, this is really exciting!
Magnificent treasures
At first sight, the bird, about 50 centimeters long, is dusty and discolored. Its long, thick beak looks drab. In the eyes of bird specialists, there’s not the slightest doubt: it’s a hornbill! Among the 60 or so possible species, my instinct steers me towards a forest species from Indonesia, and after verification, I confirm the presence of a knobbed hornbill in our collection. I can’t believe it! We really do have some outstanding gems to show our visitors.
Renewing the permanent exhibition
Exploring the reserves is the result of our intention to renew the permanent exhibition, formerly called the Naturalia discovery room, which was dismantled as part of the Biodôme’s renovation work in 2018. We want to showcase the outstanding specimens in our collection, and at the same time move, amaze and inform the public in a fun-filled and experiential way. Above all else, what we want is to show the interrelationships between species and the environment. That’s one ambitious goal!
Creating an exhibition
We assembled our experts in biology, museum studies, education and science popularization to get their ideas, some of which have been put to the test. At the beginning of the project, our first instinct was to list the must-have specimens in our collection, which consists of roughly five thousand items. We grouped corals with shellfish, the birds of prey all together, woodpeckers by order of size, fossils by how old they were...
Next, we determined the crucial stages in the process. What are the don’t-miss species, the ones that will have visitors exclaiming Wow! The choice was agonizing: there are so many special favorites and treasures.
We were looking for the common thread and the scenario for the exhibit. In what ways does a species influence the presence, the abundance and the behavior of another?
In seeking to reinvent the experience, we’re proposing a current exhibition made up of fascinating pieces. It can be visited according to the impulses of your curiosity, guided by a meticulous selection of specimens that express biodiversity in all its splendor. In total, 975 specimens will be exhibited, 519 of them being seashells arranged in a mosaic, 32 tropical hummingbirds, many birds of prey, and all the owls in Québec as well as numerous skeletons and bone arrangements.
Among these exceptional treasures we have a bird of paradise, a flying lizard, a wolverine and a sawfish rostrum. And you absolutely have to see the de Brazza’s monkey, the Lithodid crab and the passenger pigeon!
And in all that, we explain the fascinating connections among the specimens. What do corals and two-toed sloths have in common? What role do lemmings play in the lives of snowy owls? What’s the connection between the yellow-bellied-sapsucker and the ruby-throated hummingbird?
Behind the scenes at the exhibition
We’ve been excited by the themes in this exhibit, and we hope you’ll find them equally captivating. Above and beyond the specimens themselves, we found other elements just as fascinating: the heritage aspect of certain century-old specimens, modern taxidermy techniques, the updating of the project with socioecological concerns in mind.
Faced with the colossal task of preparing the specimens, we called on the services of 26 students in museum technology, who among other things contributed to specimen restoration. This lent the project an important social dimension. In addition, part of the furnishings used was salvaged from other museums’ old window glass and exhibition modules.
Even with the visit scenario and restored specimens completed, the work doesn’t end there. The room has to be built, the modules and lighting designed, the illustrations created, a typography adopted, specimen stands produced... The exhibition was designed to touch all audiences, enabling them to move around the room at their own pace and experience the wonder of what underlies the balance of living things.
The project will have taken its time
Showcasing our naturalized collection has been more than worth the effort, despite the many obstacles. And we’re so excited to be inviting you, in the weeks ahead, to discover this Montréal jewel that we’ve put so much of our heart into. Let’s hope that the sparks set off in the process will shine brightly for years to come and that these experiences will bring human beings a little closer…to nature.
Learn more about A Close-knit Nature exhibition.
