"Ocean Planet" at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

Abstract

Ocean Planet, a commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Earth Day, culminates a four-year study of the health of the world's oceans with an exploration of the human relationship to the seas.' Starting from the observation that the home we call earth is truly an ocean planet, this frankly activist exhibit both celebrates and warns, showing how our lives depend on the oceans and how, in turn, our actions affect them. Judith Gradwohl, director of the Smithsonian Institution's Environmental Awareness Program and curator of the exhibit, constructed Ocean Planet with a conservation focus and an emphasis on science. But Ocean Planet explores not only scientific dimensions of the oceans but their economic, social, literary, political, and cultural dimensions as well. The exhibit successfully deploys an array of media-sculpture, interactive exhibits, computer animation, videos, dioramas, artifacts, specimens, and photographs, as well as a notable landmark for museum watchers, the Smithsonian's first virtual exhibit on the World Wide Web