Wild Designs Exhibit- Peabody Essex Museum

Wild Designs: On View May 26, 2018 Through August 4, 2019

HOURS: Open Tuesday-Sunday, 10 am-5 pm. Closed Mondays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. ADMISSION: Adults $20; seniors $18; students $12. Additional admission to Yin Yu Tang: $6 (plus museum admission). Members, youth 16 and under and residents of Salem enjoy free general admission and free admission to Yin Yu Tang. INFO: Call 866-745-1876 or visit PEM.org

SALEM, MA – The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) presents an exhibition that explores how engineering and design concepts from nature can make the world a better place. Opening May 26, Wild Designs features not only bio-inspired works by artists, but also 24 projects and prototypes conceived by innovators who look to nature and living systems for new ideas and creative solutions to human problems. The exhibition takes place in PEM’s Dotty Brown Art & Nature Center and explores biomimetic and bio-informed innovations in design and technology that either model or engage nature to generate novel products and more sustainable solutions. Included are design projects ranging from preliminary concepts to realized products and buildings, as well as mixed media sculptures, artist installations and drawings.

“We’re surrounded by nearly four billion years of concept testing in nature,” says Jane Winchell, the Sarah Fraser Robbins Director of PEM’s Dotty Brown Art & Nature Center. “We have the opportunity to rethink our own challenges and strategies for new ideas all the time, which is similar to what’s happening in nature. New ideas percolate through evolution. Put that into a time capsule of millions of years and you end up with loads of different solutions.”