The specimens in the Field Museum’s latest exhibition had a lot of interesting stories to share with visitors. But since it’s hard to engage with something that’s dead, we enlisted the city’s help to give naturally historic specimens voice, bringing them to life.

With the help of Field Museum scientists, monologues were written for every specimen in the exhibition. Like Pixar characters, each was given an interesting personality and back-story.

With scripts in hand, we built a mobile recording booth and traveled around Chicago, north, south, east, and west, for two weeks. At each stop, locals were invited to read a script, give their voice to a specimen, and bring them to life.

The best performances were given “the part” of their specific specimen and included in the exhibition audio tour over its six-month run. All voices were made part of the permanent collection, building a connection with locals that was both physical and perpetual.

The collected audio content was also used to amplify the idea on social, alerting everyone to look for the booth and inviting them to participate.

With only one recording booth, over 4,000 people have participated over the course of 4 weeks, even waiting up to an hour for their turn to read a monologue. More than 200 minutes of audio content was added to the exhibit. The museum had 129,490 incremental visits, increasing local attendance by 21%. For the first time in years, locals saw the rebirth of their relationship with the Field Museum. The museum has plans to extend the activation beyond the exhibition, who was up until January 2018, inviting the public to give their voice to the entire collection of specimens.