Hello,

Last week, an exhibit entitled "Bikes! The Green Revolution" opened at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago, a fairly large museum that attracted around 300,000 visitors last year. From what I've seen and heard, it's well done (I'm in California and haven't seen it in person). I've read that Alex Wilson of Chicago's West Town Bikes (http://westtownbikes.org/) provided a great deal of input for the exhibit's development. In addition to touching on the history and culture of cycling, bike commuting, and other aspects, the exhibit includes hands-on learning bike mechanic stuff. To quote from a blogger (John Greenfield) who visited the exhibit:

"The model bike shop highlights the work of local nonprofits like World Bicycle Relief, Working Bikes Cooperative and Project Mobility, which provides adaptive bikes to people with disabilities, and has how-to videos featuring mechanics from West Town, Blue City Cycles and more"

I co-curated a companion art exhibit entitled "Monsters on Bikes!" with Monster Kat of Los Angeles. Although only about a third of the art is on display at the museum at this time, all of the art can be seen on Kat's website here: http://monstersonbikes.weebly.com .

Thought this might be of interest to many of you on this list. The exhibit is scheduled to run through September 9th.

Some links below.

Museum website: http://naturemuseum.org

Local FOX TV station spot: http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/metro/bicycle-bike-exhibit-peggy-notebaert-museum-sustainable-transportation-chicago-culture-20120402

Blogs/etc.: http://www.thechainlink.org/forum/topics/are-you-featured-in-the-nature-museum-s-bikes-the-green-revolutio

http://gridchicago.com/2012/a-sneak-preview-of-the-bikes-the-green-revolution-exhibition/#more-4948

http://chicargobike.blogspot.com/2012/03/bikes-green-revolution-at-notebaert.html


-Paul Nagel
The Bicycle Tree
P.O. Box 11293
Santa Ana, CA 92711
http://www.thebicycletree.org
info@thebicycletree.org