“Grigore Antipa” National Museum of Natural History is one of the oldest research institutions in the field of biodiversity and public education. In 2015 the museum held “Tesaturi Periculoase”, an exhibition of world’s biggest spiders and scorpions. The exhibition featured more than 50 species and lasted for about 5 months. The exhibition’s audience was set as “general”, but the communication target consisted in families with children, youngsters and adults based in Bucharest, with medium to high income and education. The Museum’s main mission is to promote the respect for nature, which comes with understanding and knowledge. That’s why “Grigore Antipa” chose to showcase a live exhibition of spiders and scorpions, meant to banish fear by showing the public these wonderful creatures: arachnids.
But fear is fear, so we had to deal with this barrier when promoting a rather scary exhibition. That’s why we turned reality into virtual reality. We created a VR game where children were invited to actually become a spider or a scorpion and get to see life through their eyes. Because it’s easier to play with fear than to live in fear.
