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view of Colored Shadows at the Exploratorium, the San Francisco museum for hands-on learning | all images \u00a9 The Exploratorium<\/p>\n
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A Foggy Bridge by Fujiko Nakaya<\/p>\n
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Many auteurs have commented on the peculiar weather that passes through the Bay Area. Many also like to bring up the misattributed Mark Twain quote,\u00a0\u2018The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.\u2019\u00a0Inhabitants of the region have affectionately named the fog Karl, with the Instagram account @karlthefog dutifully following its ebbs and flows. Drawing from the region\u2019s enthusiasm for its hazy weather, artist Fujiko Nakaya created Fog Bridge #72494 in 2013, where fog intermittently shrouds a bridge that connects the two piers on which the museum sits.<\/p>\n
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To achieve this, the water is\u00a0\u2018pumped at high pressure through more than 800 nozzles lining the bridge.\u2019\u00a0In 2014, when the state was experiencing a multi-year drought, the installation was deactivated as a water conservation measure. In a testament to the ever-changing nature of its displays, the Exploratorium improvised, adapted, and\u00a0\u2018reconfigured to run on desalinated water from the Bay,\u2019\u00a0in order to keep it alive.<\/p>\n
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Probably Chelsea and twenty faces from only DNA<\/p>\n
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In 2014, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, who was an artist-in-residence at the Exploratorium, was contacted by PAPER Magazine to create a portrait of whistleblower Chelsea Manning who, at the time, was incarcerated and could only conduct interviews with the press by post. The work was motivated by Dewey-Hagborg\u2019s development of Stranger Visions (2012\u20132013), in which she created profiles of strangers based solely on their DNA sequences. Speaking<\/a> to the Exploratorium about her project, she walks through precisely how she creates these images, starting with how she learned to sequence DNA at Genspace, a community laboratory in Brooklyn, and ending with 3D printing human-scale masks of the images she generates through a custom-built algorithm.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n After receiving saliva and hair samples from Manning, she created 20 possible portraits for the work Probably Chelsea, an iteration of which was presented in the museum\u2019s Cells to Self collection, which \u2018considers the incredible diversity of cell form and function, from the environmental awareness of bacteria to human heart cells beating in response to electricity.\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Exhibit Development Shop<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Since 1969, the Exploratorium museum<\/a> has been creating its hands-on exhibitions. To create them, it needs a space: The Exhibit Development Shop, a workshop whose machines, gadgets, and gizmos are on display to passersby in the museum. Between discovering the tricks of perception and the truths of gravity, visitors can see the exhibition developers at work on displays that are constantly in progress. As each exhibition is designed for interaction, the developers build them with a system of interchangeable parts that encourage use.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n With their hair tied back and safety goggles on, the developers reveal how the magic is made with table saws, drill presses, slinkies, and a mandala of silver spoons. In an interview with the museum, Jessica Strick, who has been with the museum for over two decades, remarks<\/a> about her role that,\u00a0\u2018visitors may be surprised to know that Exhibit Developers not only just come up with the ideas but build them and also maintain them.\u2019\u00a0She also mentions that the laser cutter is one of her favorite tools in the shop.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Three Days and $300<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n![\"san](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/exploratorium-intro-designboom-30.jpg\")
Probably Chelsea by Heather Dewey-Hagborg was presented in the museum\u2019s Cells to Self collection<\/p>\n![\"san](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/exploratorium-intro-designboom-11.jpg\")
the Exhibit Development Shop is their fully-equipped workshop that\u2019s on display to passersby in the museum<\/p>\n