Thanks to more than 1,500 donors and even more who watched our video and shared our campaign, today I am thrilled to present our Indiegogo-created striped hyena diorama, now on display at The Field Museum. Iāve got lots and lots of feels - so here are the remarks I presented at our Hyena Homecoming event last night. My heart is bursting with joy. <3Ā
Hi everyone. My name is Emily Graslie, and Iām the Field Museumās Chief Curiosity Correspondent, and the host and writer of our educational YouTube channel, The Brain Scoop. Most of you know that already, but I havenāt yet become tired of saying it out loud. With the help of Jaap and the exhibitions department, our communications, marketing and fundraising teams, research and science staff, conservators, designers, supportive executives, the 50+ staff and over 1,500 donors from around the world, tonight we bring you the Fieldās first-ever crowd-sourced project, and the first full-scale habitat diorama created here in over 6 decades.
I am ridiculously happy that youāre all here, and want to thank you for coming out tonight. Many of you traveled quite far to get here, and everyone in this room has waited for a long time for this special diorama.. depending on how you think of it, on the one hand it was a minimum of eight months in the making, and on the other hand, that figure is closer to eighty years. So, first and foremost, thank you for all of your hard work, patience, commitment, and the shared belief that Project Hyena Diorama was, in fact, a good idea.
That all being said, April 6th, 2015 - the day we launched Project Hyena Diorama on Indiegogo - was one of the most terrifying days of my life. The Brain Scoop was pretty much all fun and games up until that point. Because there arenāt a lot of comparable channels to The Brain Scoop, I calculate our programās success with things like hand-drawn holiday cards from children, fan art, and letters from students recently inspired by our episodes to pursue new fields of study. But this was the first time weāve taken a chance and gone out on a limb based off of a belief that those letters, comments, shares and retweets, and the thumbs-up on videos translate into a genuine and deep interest in museums and their roles in our lives. Project Hyena Diorama was a way to tangibly involve those digital supporters ā including many of you ā in a very real, very permanent thing.
None of us were 100% certain we would pull it off. But I imagine that same level of nervousness happened here when the Field decided to bring me on, and in doing so become pretty much the only institution with a full-time YouTuber on its staff. Iām told frequently that big ships turn slowly, and the Field Museum is one massive ship. I canāt emphasize enough how much faith my bosses and colleagues had to have had in me to even entertain this idea. When I say it couldnāt have happened without you, and the 1,400 other donors who couldnāt be here tonight, I genuinely mean it. Ā
So, fast forward six weeks from that terrifying launch date, and - spoiler alert - we did it! Then, people started asking me why I thought viewers and museum fans donated to the project. After all, hyenas arenāt the most charismatic creatures. So if youāre up for it, Iād love for some of you to let me know why you decided to help out and come here tonight, because honestly Iāve just been making up answers for you. āJanuary is a great month to visit Chicago!ā said nobody ever.
Your reasonings probably vary, but Iāll tell you why I was so compelled by this project idea. Itās the same reason why Iām so enamored with natural history museums in the first place. This diorama, and our museum collections, function to create and maintain a universally owned legacy. Ā
This project allowed us the opportunity to contribute to a history that is beyond any one individual, and spans almost a century of time. Today, we continue to consult Carl Akeley, a character who has been dead for ninety years, because he truly was a pioneer in this field, and his craftsmanship is still highly regarded. Our exhibits staff researchers and artists looked back many decades into the Field Museumās history to learn more about artists and designers who came after Akeley, to make sure the techniques and materials used for the hyena diorama were in line with the wishes and intentions of those who began constructing the Hall of Asian Mammals back in the 1920s and 30s. And now, weāre able to use technologies available to us today to hone those practices. We contributed to improvements in conservation, weāve utilized software that told us the exact star pattern in the sky for this moment in time, and we can rely on new knowledge about these animals that was unknown when the specimens were first collected.
Legacy is about the fact that our scientists care, in meticulous detail, about the exact shape and texture of the ball of dung that is being rolled by the tiny, mighty dung beetle in the front of this scene.
The very, very sad reality of why accuracy matters so much for dung balls and the beetles who roll them in museum dioramas is because thereās an exponentially growing threat of this scene not existing outside of Museums in another hundred years. What drives me to do the work that I do is knowing that I alone canāt stop that from happening, but I will do whatever I can to make sure we remember, share, and admire these moments in time, so generations from now children and adults can walk down this hall and become intrigued by what is naturally intriguing, and express curiosity for what is inherently curious. And your contributions to this project are the ultimate assurance that I am not alone in this idea of wanting to create compelling legacies that can be enjoyed and appreciated by hundreds of thousands of visitors to The Field Museum, and by just as many more who have gotten to know us through a twitter feed and YouTube interface. And that is certainly something to celebrate.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.Ā
