Above and Below: Stories from Our Changing Bay

SFEI is pleased to announce a major new exhibition about the San Francisco Bay. Above and Below: Stories from Our Changing Bay opened at the Oakland Museum of California on August 30. This multidisciplinary show – drawing on art, history, and natural sciences – explores the stories of how humans have shaped and been shaped by the San Francisco Bay. SFEI partnered in the development of the show over the past two years, with Senior Scientist Robin Grossinger serving as guest co-curator.

The exhibition draws extensively on SFEI expertise in water quality, mapping, indigenous knowledge, and Bay history. Within the museum, visitors will encounter a forty-foot, walkable floor photomap of the Bay produced by the GIS team. A wall-sized animation based on our research will transport visitors centuries into the past by simulating a pre-contact flyover of the Emeryville shellmound and Temescal Creek. Information graphics from the RMP Pulse of the Estuary are featured throughout the show.
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Above and Below: Stories From Our Changing Bay unveils the quirky stories of how people and nature together have shaped the San Francisco Bay Area over the last 6,000 years. The first major exhibition to be presented with all three of OMCA’s transformed galleries of California Art, History, and Natural Sciences open to the public, the exhibition highlights historic and contemporary place-based stories about the Bay, and engages viewers in discussions about the Bay’s future. Through an extensive use of media featuring oral histories, community voices, and interactives, the exhibition explores how human engineering and natural forces have come together over time to shape and reshape the land and water around the San Francisco Bay, and how sea-level rise, wetlands restoration, invasive species, and climate change are central topics in determining the future of the Bay.

Media

September-4-13

"Oakland Museum opens major exhibition on life around San Francisco Bay", published by the Inquirer.Net

September-5-13

"'Above and Below' OMCA show depicts the Bay's past, present, and future"Oakland Local, published by the Oakland Local