The Story of
“ There is a Noah in each of us— and together we are responsible for building a better world.
”
President’s Message The Skirball Cultural Center is a place of story. Jewish tradition celebrates storytelling as a way to transmit and preserve communal values, cultural heritage, and a life of good deeds. From the earliest days of the Skirball, we asked ourselves: What kinds of stories speak across cultures, with meaning for every age and stage of life? Noah’s Ark offered itself as just such a story. Its sequence of storm, ark, and rainbow tells of overcoming challenges, working together to build shelter and community, second chances, and hope for a brighter future. In its original place in the Hebrew Bible, the Noah story precedes the advent of Jewish history. Noah is a universal character, and his story describes a collective human memory. Noah’s Ark at the Skirball™ incorporates not only this ancient flood tale but also hundreds of others from cultures around the world, evolving well beyond the biblical text to become the Skirball’s own narrative—in keeping with the time-honored Jewish tradition of commentary and interpretation. In our narrative, there is a Noah in each of us—and together we are responsible for building a better world. Building Noah’s Ark involved the participation of the entire community of the Skirball. We also looked beyond ourselves for new ideas, tools, and resources. We invited partners with special skills and expertise to join us. We took risks, made mistakes, kept experimenting, and
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ventured into new levels of engagement with our audiences. What emerged from this process was a true collaboration: a vision realized. It’s often said that success has many authors, and that is certainly true. But the success of Noah’s Ark at the Skirball is owed above all to a communal embrace. That is the essence and purpose of Noah’s Ark—and of the Skirball Cultural Center.
Uri D. Herscher Founding President and CEO Skirball Cultural Center
Table of Contents 4 An Inclusive Vision of Community 6 The Story of Noah’s Ark at the Skirball
Look out for this smiley hedgehog aboard the Ark, sporting quills made of surgical tubing (though it looks a lot like pasta!) and metal thimbles for eyes.
10 What’s It Made Of? 14 Storms, Arks, and Rainbows 16 Noah’s Ark Puppets Embody the Spirit of Collaboration 18 Community Partnerships Help Noah’s Ark Stay Afloat 19 Family Activities Aboard the Ark
PLAN YOUR VISIT skirball.org
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An Inclusive Vision of Community Inside Noah’s Ark at the Skirball, visitors encounter hundreds of animal sculptures and handcrafted puppets of different sizes, shapes, and colors, created almost entirely from recycled, found, and repurposed materials. Although the animals are custom-made and sophisticated in design, none are shielded behind glass: they are meant to be touched. Instead of protecting objects from children, Noah’s Ark invites children to do the protecting, to help the animals take shelter from the storm.
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The diverse menagerie of Noah’s Ark serves as a metaphor for human society, encouraging young children to recognize the dignity and significance of each life, to work together for the greater good, to strengthen connections within and among families, to value diversity, and to advance an abiding notion of hope for the future, symbolized by the rainbow that appears when the storm is over. A variety of in-gallery programming, such as storytelling, hands-on activities, and performances, further highlights these themes, and helps to reinforce the importance of working to build a better world.
The idea of conveying these values to young people, and providing a haven for them, accords with the overall mission of the Skirball to welcome people of all communities and generations to participate in cultural experiences that celebrate discovery and hope, and foster human connections. The Skirball’s ever-evolving sensory-friendly programming and materials ensure that these experiences are enjoyable and accessible to everyone. Noah’s Ark at the Skirball is a significant experiment in experiential learning and a bold exercise in innovative exhibition design. In addition to being fun, its inclusive vision of community promotes themes of respect, hope, and equality that are universal, enduring, and meaningful to people of all ages.
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The Story of
Noah’s Ark
at the Skirball Noah’s Ark at the Skirball is a feat of artistry and engineering. Since opening in 2007, its creative animal sculptures and interactive design have made it one of LA’s most popular family destinations, praised by the New York Times as “a celebration of play, inspiring fascination, reviving wonder.” But why the Noah’s Ark story, and how did the Ark get built? The unique architecture, exhibition design, and compelling narrative are the result of intensive collaboration among a dedicated team of educators, architects, artists, and designers.
AN ARK COLLECTOR’S INSPIRATION Several years after the Skirball Cultural Center opened to the public, in 1996, its founding president and CEO, Uri D. Herscher, visited with Skirball trustee and philanthropist Lloyd E. Cotsen at his home. There he encountered an extraordinary folk art collection of more than 120 Noah’s Arks from around the world, lovingly acquired over many years by Cotsen, who eventually gifted the collection to the Skirball. The Skirball was just then in the process of exploring potential ideas for a large children’s exhibition. The story of Noah’s Ark—in which everyone works together to shape the future— seemed perfect. “It is truly the story of humankind, a story of hope and second chances,” says Herscher.
This painted clay ark, gifted to the Skirball by Lloyd E. Cotsen, comes all the way from Lima, Peru.
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CREATING AN ARK With a story in hand, the Skirball team—Sheri Bernstein, Marni Gittleman, Myna Herscher, and Robert Kirschner—embarked on a five-year mission to build a giant ark. In consultation with Moshe Safdie, the architect who designed the Skirball, they handpicked forty architectural firms from around the country to submit design proposals, guided by concepts like soulfulness, whimsy, creativity, and innovation. Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects (now Olson Kundig) won the competition with their proposal, which featured a live olive branch embedded in the presentation case. The Seattle-based firm was already known for designing civic and residential buildings with a deep respect for nature. This would be their first children’s museum project. One of the biggest decisions the team faced was whether and how to depict the character of Noah. In the end, everyone agreed that the role of Noah would be played by each visitor. “We wanted to focus on the dignity and potential of every individual,” says Bernstein, project director of Noah’s Ark at the Skirball and now vice president of Education and Visitor Experience, “and to ignite in children and families a belief in their own ability to make a positive difference in the world.”
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BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME A well-designed object—think of scissors or a wheelbarrow—needs no instructions. Noah’s Ark at the Skirball has no explanatory wall labels, yet each day the galleries come alive as children eagerly explore every crank and pulley, crawlspace and catwalk, loading ramp and rope ladder. Whether they are working together to add wooden planks to the Ark, shepherding animals aboard, feeding a hungry turtle, or caring for young ones in the nursery, visitors are encouraged to interact directly with the space—and the story. Coyotes are calling, wind is howling, rain is pouring, and children are not just responding to these effects but are themselves the actors who create them.
Filling 8,000 square feet of gallery space, the Ark can accommodate up to 150 visitors at a time. “At the very beginning we did a lot of research on the real ark, Noah’s Ark,” explains Jim Olson, who founded Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen. “The Bible actually spells it out, and it was bigger than a football field. To a little kid, the real ark would have been like a city block full of buildings. It was huge.”
“One of the best ways to engage people and have them grasp the issues being covered in the experience is by approaching it from a variety of levels,” says Alan Maskin, a partner at Olson Kundig with a background in early childhood education. “You don’t just see it—you can touch it, you can hear it, you can feel it.”
“In the first room,” Olson notes, “visitors experience the Ark before the flood—raw lumber, under construction, new. In the second room, as after a long journey, the wood is weathered, like driftwood. There is also a human element here that is very important. In our world of high technology and plastic toys, the reminder of humble materials built with people’s hands—and not a machine— is important. It helps us realize that our roots are in the natural world.”
To create a feeling of spaciousness, the architects used hidden mirrors and techniques such as separating the elements of the Ark from the building so it appears to “float” in space. The principal building material, as it would have been in biblical times, is wood.
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What’s It Made Of? In the spirit of caring for the environment, the designers of the animals aboard Noah’s Ark at the Skirball used mainly repurposed and recycled materials. On your visit, look out for familiar objects that have been transformed into new, one-of-a-kind creations.
Ram This ram’s design was directly inspired by a piece of art called Bull’s Head, created by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso in 1942. Picasso’s work, just like this one, used an old bicycle seat for the head and bicycle handlebars for the horns. The ram’s fluffy body is made from cotton curtain fringe.
Wild Boar Inspired by punk kids sporting mohawk haircuts, designer Alan Maskin gave this friendly wild boar a stiff mane of brush bristles taken from a large industrial paintbrush. Its bright-yellow carved-wood body is fashionably complemented by a curly, yellow telephone cord tail.
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Norway Rat This lively rat’s colorful body is actually a used croquet ball. Croquet is a popular sport played around the world, in which players use a mallet to knock their balls through hoops stuck in the grass. Wrapped wire forms the arms, tail, and those wacky whiskers! The rat’s good-humored, comical expression is completed by a pair of buttons for eyes.
Barn Owl The Noah’s Ark owl hovers overhead with its majestic spread of wings made from red and black Asian fans. Barn owls are found on every continent in the world except for Antarctica, and can have wingspans of up to threeand-a-half feet! This owl’s body is composed of industrial steel coil, and its heart-shaped face was hand-carved out of wood.
Zebra The life-sized zebras at the entrance of the Ark are made of wood, keyboards, and wind turbines that visitors can make spin around. Every zebra in the world has its own pattern of distinctive stripes, unique to each individual.
Brown Kiwi The brown kiwi, a flightless bird native to New Zealand, is the only bird in the world with nostrils on the end of its beak, which it uses to sniff out underground insects. The slightly anxious-looking kiwi aboard Noah’s Ark has a body made from antique boxing gloves, paintbrushes for legs, and a tarnished old oil can for a head.
Rooster Designer Christopher M. Green used an old red cowboy boot to make this rooster puppet, who you might see rolling around the Ark floor. The flap of skin dangling under the rooster’s neck is called a wattle, and the fleshy crest atop its head is its comb.
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Designers made a miniature model of this giraffe before building the final product using terra cotta pots. Like many animals on the Ark, the giraffe is interactive. Visitors can move its head back and forth by swiveling a control on the wall.
BRINGING ANIMALS TO LIFE The Ark and its nearly 400 animal inhabitants—from plush toys to the sophisticated, witty puppets and sculptures—are designed to appeal to both children and adults. Maskin worked closely with Brooklyn-based artist Christopher M. Green and designers at Lexington, the custom fabrication house that generated the technical plans and helped to craft the exhibits and animals. Green, who has a background in puppet theater, created the large kinetic animals that greet you when you first enter. The elephant is made out of a gong, vegetable steamers, and Thai rain drums. The zebras are composed of wind turbines and keyboards. “The inspiration just really comes from stuff, just going out and walking through an antique store and being like, ‘Those are ears!’” says Green. “I bought the shoe stretchers and put them on the deer. And I picked up a boxing glove and knew its shape could form the body of a kiwi bird.” Besides being durable, the kinetic sculptures and puppets also had to be transparent (so visitors could see the parts that make up the whole and how they operate), sustainable (using mainly recycled or repurposed materials), and safe for children. For the animals on the Ark, the Skirball and the project design team participated in spirited brainstorming sessions, with Maskin presenting sketches. Lexington fabricators laid out materials: catcher’s mitts for turtle shells, disco balls for elephant eyes, fans for owl wings. And together, the team created the hundreds of fanciful
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animals that now populate the Ark, including visitor favorites like the Norway rats made of croquet balls, the tarantula made of bendy straws, the giraffe made of terra cotta planters, and the iguana made from a handsaw. “All of these animals are made from different bits and pieces from everywhere, just like each of us,” says Bernstein. This innovative construction teaches children not only about the limitlessness of creativity, but also about the benefits of recycling materials, a theme reinforced by many of the hands-on activities that take place inside the Noah’s Ark galleries. Kallie, a student at Clover Avenue Elementary School, wrote to the Skirball after her visit: “I learned that a piece of trash can be turned into a masterpiece.” By allowing visitors to interact so freely with the animals on the Ark—many of them endangered—the on-site education team emphasizes the significance of caretaking. As children spin the zebras’ bodies round and round, ring the gong at the center of the elephant’s body, take a ride on the camels’ humps, or lounge on the turtle made from repurposed basketballs, they are encouraged to celebrate the differences found among our planet’s diverse species, and to recognize the special role they each play in taking care of the earth as well as of one another. Jorge, a second-grader at Alexander Science Center, put it best: “If we don’t take care of the earth, then we can’t live.”
MAKING RAINBOWS Noah’s Ark at the Skirball culminates in a unique interactive sculpture in the arroyo garden. Created by MacArthur Prize–winning artist Ned Kahn in partnership with Moshe Safdie, the Rainbow Mist Arbor extends the final thematic chapter of the Noah’s Ark experience—rainbows—from the galleries into the great outdoors. The curved metal form reaches twelve feet high and forty feet wide, rising from a base of smooth gray rocks. Visitors approach the sculpture along a pathway and across a teak bridge, and are welcome to stand beneath its cool mist and to touch its perforated surface.* At times of day when the sun shines directly on the sculpture, a natural rainbow appears in the mist.
On a warm day, families skip through the soft mists emitted by the rainbow sculpture in the arroyo garden.
When designing the sculpture, Kahn and Safdie visualized the whole garden space as a cohesive environment. Kahn explains, “We asked, ‘How can we make this more interesting and attractive, make it more than just an interstitial piece of land?’” They spent time wandering around, listening to visitors’ ideas and concerns, considering the landscape and drainage issues. “We wanted to create a real rainbow—an ephemeral, fleeting light pattern in the sky, not really there, transparent—so that you could actually wave your hand through it.” Nina Silver, head of Noah’s Ark and Family Programs, says the Rainbow Mist Arbor helps complete the inspirational story behind the exhibition. “Like a story that is passed down through the years, our collective memory of the vision of a rainbow reminds us that all storms, no matter how difficult, will eventually end. That knowledge helps us imagine a future of promise and opportunity, gives us hope, and helps us persevere.”
* Please note that the hours of operation for the Rainbow Mist Arbor may vary, in response to local drought conditions.
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Storms, Arks, and Rainbows The Three Chapters of the Noah’s Ark at the Skirball Story
The Skirball’s retelling of the Noah’s Ark story is an interpretation of the biblical tale, but it is not just a Jewish story. In fact, the Noah’s Ark story is one of hundreds of different flood stories from cultures all around the world. In a Chinese version, a brother and sister take shelter inside a large scooped-out pumpkin. The Lenape, an indigenous people of North America, tell of all the world’s animals riding out the flood by floating on the back of a huge turtle. Most of these stories share three main elements: a big storm that covers the earth in water, an ark or a shelter of some sort, and a rainbow. In the Noah’s Ark galleries, these three elements are treated like the main chapters of a storybook, and the visitor gets to bring them to life. But what does each chapter mean?
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STORMS
ARKS
RAINBOWS
As you enter Noah’s Ark, you first encounter the storm, with rain, wind, thunder, lightning, and, of course, a flood. But there is more to it! Storms serve as metaphors for challenging, lonely, or dark times in a person’s life, a family’s story, or a cultural group’s history. These storms present an obstacle, but also an opportunity— to find strength in community or to learn something new about oneself. Weathering storms requires courage, resilience, and relying on one another.
The huge wooden Ark inside the galleries provides shelter from the storm. But again, Noah’s Ark isn’t just an ark—it symbolizes a safe place where everyone is welcome and everyone belongs. Whether you are feeding the animals, building homes, caring for young ones, or cleaning up the space, you must work together with your fellow visitors to keep the community afloat. On the Ark, we all have something to contribute and are valued for who we are.
As you and your fellow travelers leave the Ark and enter the final chapter of the story, you come upon an evanescent rainbow with a glorious array of colors. As you might guess, the rainbow is not only beautiful, but it also signifies possibility—the opportunity to build a new future together in the aftermath of the storm. Even at the start of your journey in the galleries, you can catch sight of the rainbow at the end. Though far away in the last chapter, it is a beacon of hope, pulling us through our long journey together.
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Noah’s Ark
Puppets Embody the Spirit of
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One of visitors’ favorite aspects of the Noah’s Ark experience is meeting the handcrafted puppets made from found objects. Not only are the puppets uniquely and whimsically designed, but bringing them to life requires spirited collaboration, a theme echoed throughout the Noah’s Ark galleries: that only together can we build a promising future.
Working together as a team, Noah’s Ark puppeteers truly uphold the Skirball’s core ideals of making connections, building community, and celebrating life.
In the tradition of Japanese bunraku puppetry—where several performers work together, in plain view of the audience, to animate each puppet—the animal puppetry aboard Noah’s Ark requires close cooperation. It is only through the puppeteers’ teamwork that pink flamingos strut, elegant ostriches march, and white snow leopards prowl. Springing the puppets into action is a challenge that requires dexterity and skill at both the individual and group levels. Noah’s Ark educators receive ongoing puppeteer training, during which they learn to manipulate all the puppets—from the Indian vulture that flies solo to the life-sized green anaconda that requires up to five staff members working in sync. The team trains regularly and participates in intensive workshops led by Christopher M. Green, the Brooklyn-based artist responsible for the design and construction of the Ark’s kinetic animal figures. During training sessions, Green uses a variety of exercises to sharpen the puppeteers’ awareness of their own bodies as well as their responses to the movements of others. Experimenting first with objects as simple as a chair, then graduating to work with the puppets themselves, the puppeteers practice reading their colleagues’ body language and non-verbally communicating through breath cues and subtle shifts as they take turns leading the puppets’ complex moves. When a Noah’s Ark visitor experiences the lifelike grace of the puppets in action, the effect of these training exercises becomes clear. Take, for example, the performance of a puppet favorite: the gangly pink flamingo. Sporting fly-swatter feet, stilt-like bamboo legs, a handbag body, and a lanky neck made from spools of pink thread,
this Caribbean flamingo is perhaps the most challenging to manipulate. It requires two puppeteers—one supporting the head and torso, and another operating the legs— moving at a synchronized, steady pace. The puppeteers must log many hours of practice before making their flamingo debut on the Noah’s Ark floor. Once there, they work as a team; they must decide together when to start walking, when and where to pause and interact with an intrigued gallery visitor, when to dig at the floor for food, when to reach the flamingo’s long, graceful neck around its body to groom itself. Another popular favorite is the Japanese red fox, known as kitsune in Japanese. The two foxes in the Noah’s Ark galleries love to inquisitively approach visitors as they are at play, often coming to a rest by lying down on the floor with their feet splayed in opposite directions. One puppeteer is responsible for guiding their curious fox, while another might translate the Japanese folktale encoded on its decorative tail. Through these remarkable performances, it is the puppeteers who round out the personalities of the animals. Regarding the puppet as an extension of their own bodies, the puppeteers channel their energy into the puppet, collectively sharing the joys of animating the once inanimate. Working together as a team, Noah’s Ark puppeteers truly uphold the Skirball’s core ideals of making connections, building community, and celebrating life. The puppets aboard Noah’s Ark are a constant source of inspiration. They’re so popular, in fact, that the Skirball holds an annual Puppet Festival every spring. Visit skirball.org to learn more about this campus-wide, daylong event, which features a delightful array of puppets, live music, and storytelling.
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Community Partnerships Help Noah’s Ark Stay Afloat Collaboration is a central theme of Noah’s Ark at the Skirball and was the guiding principle behind its creation. The Skirball’s education team began engaging the local community as part of the exhibition-planning process right from inception, in 2003, conducting numerous focus groups with children and families from across Los Angeles County to gather input on potential themes, story elements, and exhibition ideas. As the development of Noah’s Ark continued, the team met with schools and school districts, churches and synagogues, and other community and educational organizations. In these meetings, they listened to the wisdom of others about how to best create a place of welcome for families from all different backgrounds. By early 2007, the team was ready to introduce the exhibition more broadly. They held two gatherings for community leaders and institutional representatives— from the Mar Vista Family Center to Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles—to give them a sneak peek at the galleries while under construction, and to explore how best to engage and serve audiences.
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From these collaborative consultations, strong and sustained partnerships with community leaders and organizations emerged and still persist today. Along the way, the Skirball has formed deeper partnerships with numerous educational entities, including LA’s BEST, the largest provider of after-school enrichment programs within the LA Unified School District. LA’s BEST has contributed to the development and promotion of Noah’s Ark and continues to be meaningfully involved, sending school children each week to the Skirball. Other community partners help to inspire the diverse programming that takes place inside the Noah’s Ark galleries, which is always geared towards teaching children the value of working together to build a better world. Visitors have made collages with uplifting messages to be laminated and used as placemats by patients at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and created welcome banners and comfort bags for newly settled friends at LA Family Housing. It is through partnerships like these that the true spirit of collaboration that guides Noah’s Ark at the Skirball stays alive.
Family Activities Aboard the Ark The Noah’s Ark at the Skirball experience is enhanced by a wide array of dynamic programming that takes place inside the galleries. From toddler-time sing-alongs to interactive dance performances to hands-on art making, these activities use a variety of different artistic forms to reinforce the theme of collaboration and help bring the story to life. While on the Ark, visitors may become a part of impromptu happenings or surprise interactions, such as animal seek and find, baby animal bath time, percussion circles, habitat building, storytelling, animal improv games, interactive puppet theater, or mindfulness games. There are regularly scheduled activities as well, listed daily on the Noah’s Ark webpage. Family activities at the Skirball don’t end here. The Skirball offers a variety of family-friendly programming throughout the year, including the Family Art Studio, where families work together to make one-of-a-kind art projects; an archaeology dig site; late nights aboard Noah’s Ark; amphitheater concerts; and annual campus-wide festivals for all ages, including the Puppet Festival and the Hanukkah Festival.
Top: Aboard the Ark, visitors craft tzedakah boxes, which in Jewish tradition are used to collect money for the needy; the word tzedakah derives from the Hebrew word for justice. Left: Children participate in a musical jam session using instruments from around the world.
Photographs of all Noah’s Ark galleries and animal portraits are by Grant Mudford, except where noted. 2–3 Uri D. Herscher © 2013 Loretta Ayeroff; gallery view by Ben Gibbs 4–5 Drum circle by Mercie Ghimire; animal load-up by Ben Gibbs 6–7 Folk art ark by Susan Einstein 8–9 Ropes course by Steve Cohn 10–11 Animal sketches by Alan Maskin; brown kiwi and rooster by John Elder 12–13 Giraffe model by Thomas J. Schirtz; Rainbow Mist Arbor by Steve Cohn 14–15 Storm wall by Steve Cohn; rainbow gallery by John Elder 16–17 Puppeteers by Madeline Tuthill; puppet training by John Elder 18–19 Art making by BeBe Jacobs; musical jam session by Mercie Ghimire © 2018 Skirball Cultural Center skirball.org
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