 LOCATION:
886 Cannery Row, Monterey, CA 93940 - 1085, USA
Phone: 001-831-648-4800
Fax: (001) (831) 648-4800
URL: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org
 KEY WORDS:
Living Art
 ANIMALS:
| Family: | Species: | Common Name: | Capacity: |
| Aequoreidae | Aequorea sp. | crystal jellyfish | |
| Beroidae | Beroe spp | comb jellyfish, several species | |
| Carinariidae | Carinaria cristata | heteropod | |
| Catostylidae | Catostylus mosaicus | blue jellyfish | |
| Cepheidae | Cotylorhiza tuberculata | | |
| Cyaneidae | Cyanea capillata | lion's mane jellyfish | |
| gymnosome pteropods (superfamily) | Clione limacina/Cliopsis krohni | sea angels | |
| Leucotheidae | Leucothea pulchra | | |
| Limulidae | Tripedalia cystophora | box jellyfish | |
| Migistiidae | Mastigias papua | papuan jellyfish | |
| Mitrocomidae | Mitrocoma cellularia | cross jellyfish | |
| Mnemiidae | Mnemiopsis | | |
| Pandeidea | Polyorchis spp. | bell jellyfish | |
| Pelagiidae | Chrysaora achlyos | black sea nettle | |
| Pelagiidae | Chrysaora melanaster | northern sea nettle | |
| Prayidae | Praya dubai | | |
| Rhizostomae | Cassiopeia xamachana | | |
| Ulmaridae | Aurelia spp | | |
 AWARDS:
2003 Excellence in Exhibition from the American Association of Museums
2003 Significant Achievement Exhibit Award from the American Zoo and Aquarium Association
 DESCRIPTION:
The mission of the Monterey Bay Aquarium is to inspire conservation of the oceans, through the connecting of visitors with sea life through direct experience with living animals. The exhibit also intended to surprise and inspire the curiosity and interest of the general public in the connection of art and living animals.
Jellies: Living Art is a 5,000-square-foot special exhibition that explores the aesthetic qualities of aquatic creatures through live exhibits, works of art, video and interactive displays. The exhibition features 10 species of living jellies in display tanks as large as 3,700 gallons. Several species have never been exhibited before. Some are local species from the Monterey region; the rest are temperate and tropical species from around the world. The jellies are displayed beside more than 40 works of fine art created from 1865 to the present, and a number of thought-provoking video and interactive displays. The exhibition explores the ways in which jellies and the marine environment have inspired artists.
The visual architecture in Jellies supports the theme of the exhibit, evoking the look and feel of a classical museum gallery rather than a traditional aquarium. Beside and around the large-scale live displays are art and installations by Dale Chihuly, David Hockney, Ernst Haeckel, Pegan Brooke, Cork Marcheschi and others. The galleries include a walk-through swarm of living jellies, a wall of Lava-Lamps, music, poetry and decorative lighting effects. The walls are painted in rich tones, decorative moldings cap all of the walls, and ornate faux-painted gilt frames surround every live exhibit, the interactives and the three videos that introduce the concept areas. Living displays are not designed to mimic wild habitats, but to emphasize the beauty of the animals.
Based on interviews with more than 300 visitors about their experiences in the Aquarium's permanent jellies gallery, Jellies: Living Art took a radically different approach. A huge number of visitors (97%) wanted some type of aesthetic experience in a new jellies exhibit. Some (35%) wanted only an aesthetic experience. (Content was not so imporant; they just wanted to "be" with the jellies.) Jellies: Living Art chose to celebrate the beauty of living jellies and the ways in which jellies and the marine environment have kindled artistic imagination across time and around the world. By reaching out to visitors on this affective, aesthetic level, reinforced with conservation messages about threats to jelly habitats, we sought to build a connection that would translate into support for preservation of the habitats jellies need to survive.
 SIZE:
Jellies: Living Art is a 450-square-meters special exhibition. The exhibition features 10 species of living jellies in display tanks as large as 3,700 gallons. Space allocation in square meters:
| use | indoors | outdoors | total exhibit |
| accessible | total | accessible | total |
| animals | | | | | |
| visitors | | | | | |
| others | | | | | |
| total | | 450 | | | 450 |
 COSTS:
US Dollars 2,450,000
 OPENING DATE:
8 April 2002
 DESIGN:
Beginning: January 2000
- Design: Monterey Bay Aquarium staff
 CONSTRUCTION:
Beginning: November 2001
- Construction: Stoker and Allaire, Monterey, California, USA
- Electric contractors: Leavenworth Electric, Monterey, California, USA
- Fiberglass products: Waterdog Products, Inc., El Cajon, California, USA
- Plumbing: F. M. Booth Plumbing, Monterey, California, USA
- Video animation: Ian Williamson, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
- Interactive fabrication: Chris Poehlman, California, USA
 LOCAL CONDITIONS:
 PLANTS:
 FEATURES DEDICATED TO ANIMALS:
To safeguard animal health, each tank has temperature, oxygen and high water sensors . All are connected to a PLC (Programmable Logic Control) for 24-hour/7-day-a-week monitoring of life-support systems. Air and water quality parameters are tested regularly.
 FEATURES DEDICATED TO KEEPERS:
For human safety, all behind-the-scenes service areas are ergonomically designed so that aquarists can safely maintain the exhibits.
Protocols are in place and observed for staff who handle jellies with nematocysts that can deliver a painful sting. The animals in Jellies: Living Art generally have mild stings that will, in some cases, produce a minor rash that responds to treatment with topical medications. Latex gloves are required to handle more potent jellies or for individuals with greater sensitivity to stings.
 FEATURES DEDICATED TO VISITORS:
The architecture evokes the look and feel of a classical museum gallery rather than a traditional aquarium. Surrounding the large-scale live displays are art and installations by artists ranging from David Hockney to Cork Marcheschi and others. The galleries include walk-through displays consisting of swarms of living jellies, a wall of lava lamps, music, poetry, and decorative lighting effects. The walls are painted in rich tones, decorative moldings cap all of the walls, and ornate faux-painted guilt frames surround every live exhibit, all the interactives and the three videos that introduce the concept areas.
For Spanish speakers, the main introductory panel in each concept area is written in Spanish and English. One of the exhibit interactives (an audiophone with narration about jellies adaptations) is offered in both languages. The galleries also feature a new approach to some exhibit graphics: quotes from artists, writers and philosophers about the connection between nature and are are projected in English and Spanish on exhibit walls or, in one case, in a swirl of light on the floor.
 INTERPRETATION:
Jellies: Living Art is organised into three main areas: Shape and Size, Rhythm and Movement and Colour and Pattern. Living species are placed in galleries where they best support and display one of these three concepts. Key message panels are written in English and Spanish.
Each exhibit panel presents conservation information specific to the animal on display: facts about overfishing and climate change causing jellies to bloom out of control; the impact that loss of coastal mangroves has on the survival of tropical jellies; or the fact that moon jellies are being introduced around the world in the ballast tanks of seafaring vessels, where they are competing with native species for prey.
The aquarium involves an interactive approach, appealing to visitors with different learning styles, many of them being sensory styles that are not traditionally addressed in aquarium galleries. Videos introduce each of the main concept areas (Shape and Size, Rhythm and Movement and Colour and Pattern) by integrating images of jellies with works of art, dance and kaleidoscopic visuals. Music appropriate to each concept area provides background for the galleries.
One of the interactives is an engaging mechanical depiction of the complex jelly reproductive cycle, set to the classic 1950s pop tune, "Sea of Love". Volunteer guides contribute still another level of interpretation for visitors. A corps of guides has received special training to interpret the artwork and living exhibits in Jellies: Living Art.
 MANAGEMENT:
In order to assure year-round display, the public exhibit space is supported by three culture labs totalling more than 180 sq meters. In these labs, over half a dozen species are raised through life cycles that include, free-swimming adult stage that is sexually reproductive and an attached polyp stage that reproduces asexually.
The husbandry team is culturing more than half of the exhibit species, and sharing propagation techniques with colleagues to foster wider display of jellies at public aquariums. The team has developed new designs for jellies tanks that incorporate less-costly materials, saving material and reducing tank construction costs by as much as 50 percent.
Since the opening of Jellies, the husbandry team has successfully cultured two species – blue jellies, Catostylus mosaicus, and the cross jelly, Mitrocoma cellularia - for the first time; has exhibited the spotted comb jelly, Leucothea pulchra, for the first time in the world; and has extended the exhibit life and reared through the polyp stage a fourth species, the lower hat jelly, Olindias Formosa.
The reproductive successes start with perfecting techniques that encourage sexually mature adult medusae to spawn. The biggest challenge to date has been to discover what environmental cues trigger asexual reproduction in the attached polyp phase, (whether temperature change, light level or salinity changes). In many species, the polyp stage has never been described scientifically, and to uncover jellies’ mysteries has been a rewarding challenge for the husbandry team. All staff aquarists are on an annual rotation schedule. Many will learn new professional skills as part of the jellies team during the life of the exhibit.
 RESEARCH:
Front-end evaluation: Visitor interest in a special exhibition on jellies, by People, Places & Design Research, Jeff Hayward, Northampton, Massachusetts in 2000.
Formative evaluation of the moon jelly life cycle interactive, by Jacqueline Tomulonis, Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Summative evaluation: by Steven S. Yalowitz and Jacqueline Tomulonis in 2003.
 CONSERVATION:
In order to assure a year-round display, Monterey Bay Aquarium supports it public exhibit space with three culture labs totalling more that 2,000 square feet. In raising more than half a dozen species through all stages of their life cycle, the aquarium reduces pressure on the need to extract species from the wild.
Sustainable building materials have been incorporated into the exhibit construction. Sea water from all tanks with exotic species is filtered to five microns and sterilised prior to discharge, to avoid accidental introduction of exotic species into the wild.
 LOCAL RESOURCES:
|
 |
| 46K | 65K |
| Site Plan |
| ©Monterey Bay Aquarium, 2003 |
 |
| 46K | 221K |
| Northern sea nettle, chrysaora melanaster, close-up (5) |
| ©Monterey Bay Aquarium, 2003 |
 |
| 39K | 49K |
| Black sea nettle, Crysaora achylos (14) |
| ©Monterey Bay Aquarium, 2003 |
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