The Bloomfield Science Museum takes us way down into the Deep

For Jerusalemites, even the surface of the sea can feel like an exotic destination, with the June heat waves leaving land-locked city residents dreaming of the beach. This summer, the Bloomfield Science Museum is bringing the ocean to Jerusalem – the oceanic depths that is, with The Deep, an internationally acclaimed and road-worn exhibit previously shown in Paris, Le Havre, Angola, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Shanghai.
The exhibit is even running in London at the same time as Jerusalem.

 

Here, audiences can see specimens of amazing creatures that somehow survive at depths of over 10,000 meters below sea level, many of which sport jaw-dropping physical attributes, such as fish with leg-like formations, or jellyfish whose chemical makeup allows them to glow when in danger.

Bringing the exhibit to Jerusalem was a complex and extended process. Allan Gottini, a taxidermist at Paris’ Natural History Museum, where the exhibit was first displayed, spent a month in Jerusalem helping to set up the special animal display cases. Engineers and planners at the Bloomfield Science Museum themselves spent a month preparing for Gottini’s visit, setting up the pitch-black backgrounds, creating an undersea atmosphere and translating all the explanations into Hebrew and Arabic to make them accessible to the local populations.

“We also wanted to add an Israeli aspect to it,” explains the museum’s Dea Brokman, who oversaw production of the exhibit, to GoJerusalem.com, “so we spoke to Israeli scientists who study the Red Sea and the Mediterranean to add in some local flavor. We also expanded on many of the exhibit’s activities, turning them into full-fledged workshops, to make it more educational.”

Brokman questions the relevance of Jerusalem’s lack of coastline to the exhibit’s local appeal. “This field of research is new, the whole field is new, the fact that there is plant and animal life in the deep sea is new to everyone, not just Jerusalemites,” she notes.

Indeed, the project is the brainchild of Claire Nouvian (pictured, gazing into exhibit case), a former wildlife and scientific film director who herself became infatuated with the deep after seeing an exhibit at the Monterey Aquarium. “I dived head first into the abyss with an immediate desire to make these extraordinary discoveries available to the largest public possible,” Nouvian explains. “I started with the documentaries and the book [The Deep, published in 2006], and I developed the concept of the exhibition over a few years.”

Nouvian’s dedication led to a remarkable exhibit, in terms of both quantity and quality. As Nouvian explains, “Never before has such a large collection been gathered. We have used the massive research work completed for the production of my book…. The collection of deep-sea creatures gathered here is truly unique, some of these creatures are being shown to the public for the first time.”

The approach to the exhibit’s displays also renders The Deep a maiden voyage. “This is the first time that deep-sea creatures are presented suspended in their aquatic environment,” notes Nouvian, “held by invisible threads attached to walls of molded resin along the edges of the aquariums. The fact that these creatures have not been stuffed means that what you see is completely natural – no retouching!”

These untouched creatures of the Deep will be in Jerusalem through August 31, when, following in the footsteps of the museum’s successful Einstein exhibit, they cross the ocean’s surface to their next destination.