Down to Earth: Museum of Nature’s new installation will have visitors looking up
Posted Aug 20, 2020 01:58:00 AM.
At Ottawa’s Museum of Nature, make sure to look up to the sky and see Gaia, the new globe suspended high up in the museum’s Atrium.
Gaia, an inflatable globe presented by British artist Luke Jerram, is appearing in Canada for the first time
“For our entire human existence we have been gazing up at the moon and projecting all our hopes, dreams and wishes up there,”Jerram said. ““Whereas it was only in 1968 that we were able to see our planet floating in space for the first time.”
Visitors will be able to see the floating sculpture when the museum reopens on September 5.
“We’re excited to see how visitors react to it,” Ailsa Barry, vice president of experience and engagement at the museum said. “From the entrance in our Atrium to the fourth floor balcony, each level offers a different perspective of Gaia, and it reminds us what an amazing place our home planet is.”
The artwork is seven metres in diameter and features high resolution NASA imagery. Each centimetre of the sculpture describes 18 km of the Earth’s surface.
There are only five copies of Gaia around the world. It was originally planned to be unveiled at the museum for Earth Day on April 22, but was cancelled due to the museum’s COVID-19 closure.
