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San Diego Natural History Museum opens acclaimed traveling water exhibit today; a chat with the museum curator

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 19, 2008 at 4:49 pm

The “Water: H20=Life” Exhibit opened today and will be on display through November 30, 2008. The San Diego museum is the only west coast venue for this acclaimed exhibition. And note, Aquafornia pictures are featured in the California section of the exhibit!   From the San Diego Natural History Museum webpage:

Celebrate water, our natural resource—more valuable than oil, more precious than gold—the essential ingredient of our life, culture, history, and future.

Water affects the lives of every creature and plant on Earth. Every language has a word for water, and this ever-present yet precious substance influences art and cultures around the globe. Using innovative technology, hands-on activities, live animals, and captivating imagery, the exhibition allows visitors to explore water in its many forms and uses. A special section of Water: H2O=Life is devoted exclusively to southern California’s water issues and will be on display at the Museum for at least two years. That section, titled Water: A California Story, was designed and developed by the Museum.

Visit the San Diego Natural History Museum’s webpage for this exhibit by clicking here, where you can find out more information, plus view a slideshow of pictures of water in California by many great flickr photographers.

Here’s a chat with the curator of the museum about the exhibit from the Voice of San Diego:

Exequiel Ezcurra serves as provost for the San Diego Natural History Museum, directing its scientific research programs. He’s also the curator for an exhibition about water that opens at the museum Saturday. The exhibition, Water: H2O=Life, runs through November, and highlights the challenges facing water supplies across the globe. It explores the history of the relationship between people and water, from humankind’s massive infrastructure investments to the role played by wetlands.

The exhibition features a California-specific display that examines the multitude of issues facing Southern California’s water supplies. We walked through the exhibit with Ezcurra and talked to him about the parallels of water challenges across the globe, how San Diego’s water consumption relates to the world and why the city of La Mesa has a beef with Ezcurra’s desiccated landscaping.

What do you hope to convey to the people who visit?
The exhibit was developed by a group of 11 different museums. We got participants from all over the world. It was interesting that people from places as different as Sao Paolo, where it’s wet, California, where it’s dry, Ontario or Singapore, they all had the idea that a water exhibit was important because they felt their region was facing problems with their water supply. That gave us an impression that we are facing a global problem. Different cultures are feeling that their ability to provide their population with enough water and good, quality water is decreasing, and they have to do something about it.

You will see examples along the exhibit from all different parts of the world. And that is something that I thought once the exhibit was finalized that could be a problem for us. That visitors from Southern California could get the false impression that water problems are something that happens to Brazilians or Singaporeans — not something that happens in the United States. So we did an add-on exhibit, Water: The California Story, where we basically show that all these concepts and the problems and challenges associated with the sustainable use of water also occur in California.

Read more on this story from the Voice of San Diego by clicking here.

July 19, 2008 · Filed Under General Water Issues

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