[Applause]
my name is Aaron delehanty and I am an
artist I build time machines devices
that take you away from the here and now
and show you places that you couldn’t
see otherwise they’re meant to inform to
teach and inspire it anybody who enters
my time machines does come out a more
informed or inspired person my dad my
time machines are dioramas devices that
will recreate a specific space in time
in nature in human history
they are meant to teach you about your
own history and your own place within
the realm of nature it’s a special way
of learning time and there really is
nothing else like it now my art has
always been this sort of exploration of
the natural world and mankind I’ve
always made work that’s kind of explored
that problem somewhere along the line it
led me to making these works of art
dioramas that showcase things like that
lifestyle of a lost people or the
behavior of a curious animal or a
snapshot of a fleeting ecosystem
remember that one snapshot of cleaning
ecosystem because we’ll come back to
I’ve been fortunate to work as a museum
artist at the Field Museum in Chicago
and now at the Rochester Museum and
Science Center
it has Monday that we’ve been the best
education of my life I’ve been able to
work on my craft as an artist that work
with scientists to make objects that
communicate big ideas to the public it’s
brought me into a much more deeper
relationship with nature in a much
deeper relationship with history but
being a museum artist it’s rather
difficult work and it’s pretty neat when
I tell people what I do the typical
response is something
lines of how you build popsicle stick
villages and I said I mean yeah I kind
of do that is what I do but I have to be
very thoughtful very specific about how
I build a diorama but it’s how their
build is tied directly to how it
communicates so let me show you an
example let’s get into the time machine
we’re gonna go back 7,000 years to a
flood plain near Shanghai and visit this
culture the community now they were a
nomadic culture they had to move every
time that the floodwaters came there
until somebody came up with this form of
architecture of these homes on stilts
and this allowed them the munu to stay
put and this new cemetery life brought
out its herd of all kinds of innovations
for him we looked at their hard work we
recreated the scenes that they left
behind but you know the more I study
these people and I really try to immerse
myself in the research and the culture
as much of it as much as I could I
started to see and started looking very
clear to me how central water was to
their identity and I found it something
that I should really try to convey so
how do you do something like that
I put puddles randomly throughout the
village and put people interacting with
the public there’s a river with a
waterfall marshes and if you look up
there’s fog in the air and there’s even
an oncoming storm so all of these
details collectively hit your
subconscious and they convey a real
complex notion something very complex
about somebody’s identity and it’s done
without words to recreate their
floorboards I use popsicle sticks so I
have meters of them but I said hours
working with those popsicle sticks I
dispensed
hammers and scrape them with wire
brushes I put layers and coffee stains
on them I haven’t put little specks of
red on them to simulate bloodstains
because the people didn’t have quality
Footwear their lives are really hard so
I wanted these floorboards to tell a
very complex story like them as if these
floorboards were worn down by
generations of people would have suited
this village and their culture was
something that was built by generations
of people so all these details they’re
all very unfortunate and to know them we
have to learn about our past so science
plays a big role here I work very
closely with scientists scientists and
art does have a long history of working
together and they might actually seem
like opposites but in fact science and
art are in harmony
every time that science pushes the
boundary of what we know they have to
work with an artist or a creative person
for the health setting at home to bring
those new ideas to the imagination of
the public so when I start a new diorama
it always begins with research I consult
with botanist enologist anthropologists
and archaeologists and because of that
we hit play so because of that we’re
able to tell very complex stories so
let’s go back 5,000 years to a longshan
civilization in China I worked with
archaeologists and through my art work I
was able to accomplish to convey really
complex stories of this past to through
my heart and translate it so whether
it’s the architecture of a lost home or
if it’s urban plan that’s been buried
for thousands of years that all begins
with scientists pushing the boundary of
what we know and collaborating with an
artist to help them so let’s talk a
little bit more about this boundary for
that we could stay right here in
Rochester but go back to 1885 and meet
with this man Carl Akeley this is him
not long after he
one a life and Ted battle with a leopard
so he been mentioned a type of diorama
called the habitat diorama and the
intention of that he worked with his
wife to mechanically so the intention of
a habitat diorama is to build a
replication of this very specific
ecosystem and to do it with such
precision that they become exact
replicas and time capsules for that
environment this is very important as it
inspires us about nature inspires us to
learn more about science our own history
and where our change our landscape has
changed and that brings me to the point
of another very important part of a
habitat diorama is the fact that you can
go back to these sites that these
dioramas were originally based on and
compare them to see how they’ve changed
to today so this is Steven Quin of the
American Museum of Natural History in
New York he led an expedition to the
site of the Carl hinckley mountain
gorilla diorama and was able to compare
the backdrops and by doing that you can
see right away the effect of human
encroachment on this landscape his head
radio towers have sprung up much the
lensman clear-cut for farming if you
look closely there’s even a refugee camp
in the battle and this is my habitat
dioramas have become important tools
within the conservation
like I said they teach us about where we
are where we’re going and where we’ve
been so we should be making more of
these dioramas right so we should be
making more of these dioramas right good
answer
we are let’s go to Chicago 2015 I was
lucky enough to be on a team very
honored to be on a team to work on it to
complete and not finish car late we have
diorama and this one was on striped
hyenas so these scrappy little animals
needed a new home and to do that we
crowdfunded from over 1,500 people from
over 36 different countries and they all
contributed to the building of this
diorama they saw something important and
so we don’t want to let all these people
down our team we scrutinize every single
leaf every single stone that went into
it we mimicked a season that the animals
were collected I even had to remake the
little ball of poo that the dung beetle
was pushing around a scientist said my
first ball was a Viper’s enough for the
environment so even we worked with an
astronomer we want to get the star
pattern right for this type of juice so
when karlie he was there on August 6th
1896 at 5:30 in the morning if you’re
looking northeast this is the star
pattern that you would have seen even
the moon is in the correct phase so
dioramas like this one and this is what
we ended up with that way I feel like we
did what we’re very respectful for their
habitat and I think we’d go a long way
to showing how these animals survived
such a dangerous environment but
dioramas like this one
they’re thought of as a general sense as
being maybe a bit date in the roll
fashion and I’ve thought it too and
that’s ok but and they’re kind of other
conflict a little bit with technology
because we have video is right there on
your phone there’s interactive to nearby
so why would you want to spread brain
power and your time and uncovering the
secrets of a diorama like this but
technology is very important for museums
and enhances learning that we shouldn’t
dismiss all this new form of
communicating but we should this mrs.
old form of communicating here does
these habitat dioramas and dioramas have
a lot to tell us and I convinced that
this is the reason why so many people
love that especially when they’re a kid
and you stand in front of it and you’re
teleporting this other place it really
sparks your imagination maybe you guys
are some of these kids and maybe you’ve
grown up to be adults who have a great
respect of your own history maybe you
have a great respect of the natural
world because of it I encourage you the
next time you’re somewhere and you
encounter a diorama somewhere I want you
to stop just take a deep breath allow
the world around you to just melt away
and disappear taking adventure inside
that time machine and lose yourself in thank you
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