Great Whales – Up Close and Personal
“Great Whales: Up Close and Personal” was an exhibition about the world’s largest whales living in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. It aimed to help visitors appreciate whales’ unique evolutionary adaptations, mysterious behavior, and global ecological importance—and ultimately, to inspire behavior to help save them from extinction. It featured remains of a blue whale—the largest animal on Earth—alongside the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale and the deep-diving sperm whale. Through creative interpretive design, meaningful community collaboration, and compelling storytelling, the exhibition experience was transportive, informative, and moving.
The Challenge
One of the primary design challenges was placing three giant skeletons within limited space in the exhibition hall, while also integrating interpretive content and experiences around each animal. The exhibition team worked closely to strategically place the skeletons in central areas of the hall, where they were always visible to people exploring the comparative or inspirational material around them. Dimmed lighting and immersive underwater designs surrounded the animal remains, while the adjacent content was illuminated for visitors to access. To ensure the aquatic ambiance was never interrupted, graphic murals and shades of blue were carried through structural elements and graphic designs in all interpretive installations.
Project Vision
“Great Whales” was designed to immerse visitors in the awe-inspiring world of the majestic whales. With projections of life-size swimming whales, echoing soundscapes, dynamic lighting, and a thoughtfully curated colour palette from deep aquatic blue to light teal, the exhibition transported visitors from land to the ocean depths—and back to the surface. The skeletons were at the centre of the exhibition, installed in active poses with surrounding video, making visitors feel like they were swimming alongside the world’s largest animals. In various sections, large-scale infographics highlighted comparisons between great whales and other mammals, including humans, emphasizing similarities and fostering a deeper connection between visitors and these underwater giants.
Paul Eekhoff
Paul Eekhoff
Design + Execution
Interactive designs and intricate models engaged visitors of all ages and abilities, encouraging exploration into whale behaviour, biology, and conservation efforts. Because this exhibition was designed when COVID-19 restricted touch-based interactives, the team sought other modes of sensory interaction to enhance accessibility. Sound supplemented sight-based experiences, floor-buttons activated some digital installations, and prompts on labels encouraged closer engagement with the real whale skeletons and intellectual interactivity with seek-and-find displays.
Indigenous knowledge informed integral parts of the Great Whales exhibition experience. Collaboration with Elders, scientists, and artists from coastal Indigenous Nations brought meaningful language and moments of engagement that created a deeply moving and transformative journey, including:
- personally-recorded whale songs that played alongside each whale in the exhibition, honouring these beings and thanking them for sharing their stories. As the melodies enveloped visitors without translation, they created a spiritual connection between us and the whales.
- an invitation to offer a token, prayer, or memory to the whales, fostering a sense of interconnectedness and reverence for the natural world. Unprompted, many visitors offered money toward whale conservation, proving the moving effect of this experience toward the exhibition message.
- moments in videos and the audio guide that offered unscripted perspectives from Indigenous scientists and artists, adding viewpoints that enriched the typical Western scientific content in profound ways.
Paul Eekhoff
Paul Eekhoff
Paul Eekhoff
Paul Eekhoff
Paul Eekhoff
Project Details
Design Team
Dave Hollands (design director)
Margot Thompson (lead exhibit designer, graphics)
Yunwen Zhu (lead exhibit designer, 3D)
David Sadler (exhibit designer, 3D, modular exhibitry furniture)
Rachel Wong (exhibit designer, graphic, evolution infographic)
Bob Walsh (lighting designer)
Courtney Murfin (interpretive planner)
James Nixon (project manager)
Mark Engstrom, Burton Lim, Oliver Haddrath, Jacueline Miller, Mark Peck, Gerry De Luliis (curators)
Randy Dreager (media production manager)
Scott Loane (senior video producer)
Daniela Rupolo, Efehan Elbi (video producer)
Georgia Guenther (exhibit model artist)
Hilary Neal (design technologist)
Jasper Jeanes (graphic design technologist)
Royal Ontario Museum (planning)
Holman (exhibit fabricator and installer)
ICON digital (graphic fabricator)
ROM In-house Media Team (digital fabrication)
Audio Video Design(av installer)
Collaborators
Research Casting International (preparation and mounting whale skeletons)
Julius Csotonyi (illustrator whales evolution)
Uko Gorter (illustrator whales and marine life )
Maggie Paul (wolastoq elder, performer whale song)
Possesom Paul (wolastoq artist, voice actor, audio guide)
Bluecadet (digital interactive game for blue whale)
Photo Credits
Paul Eekhoff
Open Date
July 2021