Science and Magic Meet In New Exhibit

 

 

A fearsome dragon greets visitors entering the newest exhibit at the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau. With red slit eyes, a wicked grin and outstretched bat’s wings, he seems to dare guests to enter the realm of the fantastic and leave their disbelieving minds at the door.

 

The exhibit, Mythic Beasts: Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids, is different from the sort you might expect to find at the museum — it’s tinged with a touch of magic.

 

Mythic Beasts explores the fantastic creatures of our imaginations, from unicorns to Bigfoot, and the legends that surround them.

 

But more than just whimsy, it considers the scientific phenomena that can play tricks on the mind, leading ancient and modern cultures alike to see the fantastic in the ordinary.

 

The exhibit prompts visitors to consider how a sea cow might look an awful lot like a mermaid to a seasick sailor. And doesn’t the skull of a long-extinct elephant found on a Greek isle look like that of a one-eyed man, a Cyclops, with that hole where the trunk once was?

 

“I think it’s very important for people to understand how important myths and cultural elements are really grounded in the natural world, in real life,” said Alfredo Espinosa, senior director for global business development at the American Museum of Natural History, one of four museums that developed the exhibit with the Museum of Civilization.

 

It’s this blend of social and natural history that makes the exhibit so unique. Paleontologists and anthropologists came together to build it.

 

“It’s not just a cultural exhibition, it’s not just a fossil exhibition, it’s the two things together,” said Espinosa.

 

“You are mixing two very different worlds, two very different cultures in the scientific world. It immediately became a fascinating and creative exchange, like cross-pollination.”

 

According to museum curator Nicholette Prince, the exhibit can teach visitors about different cultures. There’s no better way to understand a people and their morals than to look at their legends, she said.

 

Look at the differences of the unicorn in the East and West. To the Europeans of the medieval ages, the white unicorn symbolized purity, sometimes becoming a manifestation of Jesus Christ. In the Orient, the unicorn was goat-like and responsible for the introduction of the symbols that would come to compose the Chinese language.

 

But in stories of fantastic beings emerge just as many cultural similarities as differences.

 

“People the world over share a fascinating trait,” said Prince. “They all tell stories about magical creatures.”

 

Because the Museum of Civilization was involved in the exhibit’s conception — along with the Field Museum in Chicago, the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney and the Fernbank Museum in Atlanta — it is filled with some purely Canadian monsters, from the sea serpent Ogopogo to the Inuit ocean goddess Sedna.

 

But beyond cultural education there’s the simple fact that the exhibit is great fun. That’s probably why it drew in 450,000 visitors when it spent its time at the Museum of Natural History in New York.

 

“I think people connect with this,” Espinosa agreed.

 

“People connect with dragons and mermaids and unicorns. People like fun things. You come to the museum to learn, but if you can also come here and have fun, that’s a lot better.”