Open through August 11, 2025
In an age of complex environmental challenges, why not look to the ingenuity of nature for solutions? The forms, patterns, and processes found in the natural world—refined by 3.8 billion years of evolution—can inspire our design of everything from raincoats to skyscrapers. This approach to innovation, called biomimicry, is becoming increasingly popular. Bird wings. Beehives. Porcupine quills. These have inspired design improvements that enable faster travel, safer buildings, and more precise medical equipment.
Nature’s Blueprints: Biomimicry in Art and Design combines art and design with environmental science, using scientific and artistic objects and interactive learning stations.
Biomimicry is not a novel idea; Gaudi and Da Vinci both took inspiration from nature. Modern science and technology, however, are rapidly expanding the types of materials and systems we can create. Similarly, the biological world has long been an inspiration source for artists. Biomimicry in art is not just painting or sculpting a flower. Rather, it is a process that entails exploring the material properties, cycles, and dynamics of nature, and how whole biological systems are structured—and putting that into works of art. Artworks and designs rooted in nature’s laws and forms can address pressing issues, such as conservation, sustainability, and environmental justice. They can also spark an interest in and connection with nature.
This exhibition’s intended takeaway messages are that nature is incredible, we can learn from it, and we can all be inventors. It also indirectly highlights the importance of research. Our understanding of the natural world can lead to extraordinary inventions that improve lives and reduce our impact on the environment.
The exhibition is an adaptation of the High Desert Museum’s Innovation Lab: Design Inspired by Nature. High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon, brings together wildlife, cultures, art, history, and the natural world to convey the wonder of North America’s High Desert. The High Desert Museum opened in 1982, is a Smithsonian Affiliate, and was a finalist for the 2018 National Medal for Museum and Library Services.
Nature’s Blueprints: Biomimicry in Art and Design is an adaptation of the High Desert Museum’s Innovation Lab: Design Inspired by Nature, and is produced and toured by ExhibitsUSA, a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance.
