Life! Beginnings
California Science CenterAbout This Project
California Science Center, Los Angeles, CA
Evidence Design’s latest collaboration with the California Science Center explores how humans and all living things reproduce, develop and pass on their genes. Life! Beginnings is the first phase of a planned renovation of CSC’s World of Life gallery. In this bilingual permanent exhibition, egg and seed-shaped pods evoke life itself and hold playful digital and analogue interactives that convey life’s incredible ability to make more life. Stepping into a womb-like ribbed structure, visitors witness the incredible human journey from conception to birth through immersive audio and video and a display of real fetal specimens. A living exhibit features hungry green caterpillars that transform into fuzzy sphinx moths the size of your hand.
Through motion gesture, visitors try their dance skills to attract mates, build a baby pigeon by mixing and matching its parents’ genes, and are challenged to match embryos to various species. Tilt tables emulate the diverse survival strategies of frogs and elephants, while flip panels reveal strange and wonderful illustrations that imagine humans adopting wacky reproductive strategies of other species. Sensitive topics like puberty and pregnancy point guests to local resources for additional information and support. From hydra to humans, life’s fantastic journeys connect us all.
Project Partners
Build-A -Bird interactive is based on Pigeonetics from the
Genetic Science Learning Center at The University of Utah
Birth Video and Make Room for Baby,
originally produced by Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago and Cortina Productions
All photos courtesy of the California Science Center, Photographer: Jamie Pham