Artifacts, Museum of Future Lost Objects is a virtual museum that seeks to document and preserve the memory of a disappearing natural world.

In the past forty years, earth has lost half of its wildlife (World Wildlife Fund). It is predicted that in the next eighty years, twenty-three percent of the earth’s natural habitats could be gone (World Economic Forum). While conserving healthy ecosystems and habitats is important, the specific problem I am tackling with my senior project is the documentation of natural entities before they become extinct.

Artifacts addresses this by displaying three-dimensional models of various plants, animals, and features of the landscape. The “artifacts” were all found and documented in the undeveloped wilderness of Southeast Alaska. These models allow users to interact with and learn about features of the natural world, even if they themselves are unable to visit and witness them first-hand. On the website, users are able to interact with the artifacts in a tactile way by zooming in, out, and rotating the models. This invites the user into a deeper exploration than a two-dimensional image permits, allowing for a more meaningful connection: between user and natural world, permanence and change, loss and discovery.

Unlike a forest, what you put on the internet is forever, impermeable to the wear of time. I would like to harness this ability to make the mortal immortal, inspire a love of the natural world and what we still have, and write a letter to the future showing what we have lost.

One of the main inspirations behind this project is Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, and the lyric “they took all the trees and put them in a tree museum”. My senior project is my own version of Mitchell’s tree museum.