Caring Society - Tiny Creatures
With the rapid urbanisation of cities, fields are gradually turning into high-rise buildings, plants are being replaced by steel, and gardens are replacing natural fields based on the human need for vegetation. This responds to the demands of human development and improves the quality of human habitation.
However, due to this, humanity’s relationship with nature is changing, as well as the methods used in order to gather knowledge and interact with it.
Our approach to this brief was to create a 2 perspective illustrated comic about the Chinese Mitten Crab (an invasive species) and their "annoying" interactions with humans (namely the characters of a fisherman, a scientific researcher and a student). We wanted to allow our audience to engage in thinking about the relationship between nature and current events, as well as a way to start a conversation about the philosophies behind the natural sciences.
Since the Natural History Museum sees just over 4m+ visitors per year, whether from London or around the globe, we wanted to reach out to see how we as artists can collaborate with institutions that impart vital knowledge, and how we can make said knowledge as relevant, engaging, and also encourage viewers to employ an attitude of investigation when it comes to receiving information in a digital age.
Conducting our treasure hunt:
Our comic pages will be placed in sections in different parts of the museum. First, an audience member can collect a leaflet at the site of the first poster or at the information desk at the Natural History Museum.
On the back of the leaflet, there will be a map of the museum marking where every comic is located. Viewers must go to the site of each comic, can view the poster art. The leaflet has little inserts where they can collect the mini flyer versions of the posters and add them into their personal leaflets, as a collectible. At the end of the treasure hunt, there is an area for feedback regarding the hunt/the nature of the story behind the approach to investigation taken by scientific researchers. Anyone from any background is able to fill in feedback/suggestions and submit it back to the information desk for collection.
Please see our video submission for a visual demonstration of how this will look.
