MUSEUMS AND EXHIBITS: CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS GIVE ACCESS TO DISCOVERY
American Museum of Natural History
Nim's lifelong interest and training in science and art led her to the American Museum of Natural History, where she spent five years creating sculptures for traveling and permanent exhibits including: Hall of Biodiversity, she most notably oversaw the assembly of over 300,000 leaves to recreate a center piece of the museum's first issues-oriented hall; In the renovated Hall of Ocean Life, Nim's replicas continues to provide access to hard-to-see underwater creatures for millions of museum visitors; the Discovery Room includes many hands-on elements, which she continues to develop in her other work.
Brooklyn Bridge Park
The Nancy Bowe Discovery Station in the Brooklyn Bridge Park Environmental Education Center is the centerpiece of this interactive community space, opened in the fall of 2015. Nim (working within Human Nature Projects) developed all aspects of the content, based on her years of interpretive program development with the park. The Discovery Station serves two key functions as part of the new visitor center. First, it works as an engaging three-dimensional map of the park landscape, an award winning design by renowned landscape architects MVVA. Next, the Discovery Station illustrates aspects of the park’s natural and cultural history. After familiarizing themselves with various topics--birds, salt marsh restoration, bridge engineering--visitors can explore these topics just outside the building.
MoMA
In 2009, Nim was chosen to be part of one of five multidisciplinary teams of architects, landscape architects, and energy experts to develop ecologically based solutions to climate change-induced rising sea levels for New York Harbor. Organized by the Princeton University School of Architecture, this three month charette at MoMA’s PS 1 galleries eventually resulted in the exhibit Rising Currents, one of the most visited architecture shows in MoMA’s history.
Nim's team was assigned a complex post-industrial site that included the coastlines of Staten Island and New Jersey. Their proposal included environmental restoration using adaptive reuse of glass, clean energy generation using existing infrastructures, and building innovative public spaces. Several years later, NYC experienced its worst storm surge and urban inundation in history, Hurricane Sandy. Some of the ideas studied as part of this effort are being employed by communities in New York and New Jersey as they continue to rebuild and better prepare for future storms and inundated coastlines.
Other
Nim’s other works are included in other permanent and temporary exhibits including the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, Virginia Children’s Museum, Bronx Zoo, Kenai Fjords National Park (summer 2025).