The American Museum of Natural History has been exploring different ways to foreground climate change content in its very popular diorama halls. This initiative, installed for Climate Week 2025, leveraged the strong visuals of the museum’s dioramas by literally layering climate content over them, applying large-scale graphic messaging to the glass. Several dioramas were additionally enriched with interactive content.

Previous interventions had taken a subtle approach, obscuring less of the diorama and integrating into the existing hall as if they had always been there. After evaluations revealed that visitors often did not see these respectful installations, a bold and disruptive direction was chosen for this short-term install. Several installations used the surface of the diorama glass as an infographic space – for example, half of the bison diorama was covered with an image of agricultural machinery, to reflect the fact that half of their traditional habitat has been taken over by crop land. A graph of recent wildfire damage (which resembles abstracted flames) was layered over a deciduous forest diorama. Others used simple image juxtaposition: a life-size emaciated tick-ridden moose on the glass stands in stark contrast to the healthy moose inside. And on the Alaskan brown bear diorama, a simple question was posed, accompanied by an interactive which highlighted climate-driven changes in the environment. Everywhere, red was used as the language of heat, alarm, and infection. A “good news” story of wetlands absorbing storm water was the outlier, showing blue water sinking into the landscape. Extra-bold text challenged the passing visitor; smaller text elements provided additional interpretive depth, always keeping in mind the limited attention span of the typical museum visitor. The show was originally intended to be on display for one week; its popularity led to an extension of three months.