Ice Age Tunnel, Natural Regions Dioramas

Indiana State Museum Indianapolis, IN | 2002

This project consisted of creating eight dioramas which represented natural regions and formations specific to the state of Indiana. The environments included molding and casting a cave and crevice and fabricating rock work, trees, plants, and water. In order to access the Megenity cave job site, we had to spelunk 200 feet into a cave with all of our materials and supplies. After passing through several narrow passage ways, we made a descent down a 20 foot vertical shaft filled with 5 feet of water. We took a mold of the lower section of the shaft which involved applying three layers of rubber to the cave wall. Back in our shop, detailed measurements of the cave were taken with laser instruments to create a support jacket for the mold. Once the mold was completed, it was cut into manageable pieces and carried out of the cave. We fabricated stylized “snapshots” of regions specific to Indiana that involved recreations of Tipton Till Plain in the spring, Grand Prairie and the Kankakee Marsh in the summer, Shawnee Hills in the fall, and Big Rivers in the winter. The majority of the plants and trees were made by hand and the prairie grasses were grown over an entire summer at our shop and were then preserved and painted.