By Kristen Nevarez Schweizer
The Nat is back! The San Diego Natural History Museum is getting ready to throw the doors open with a new atrium ceiling, significant solar installation, and more on Friday, May 22.
The jewel exhibit, worth scheduling your summer trip around is Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea, and features 25 large-scale marine sculptures, each handcrafted entirely from debris collected off coastlines across the United States. We’re talking about an 18-foot whale ribcage, suspended jellyfish blooms, and eye-catching sea animals each made from plastic bottles, flip-flops, lighters, grocery bags, and toothbrushes that were, until recently, choking the ocean.
For artists in particular these literal litter pieces deserve a long look. The Washed Ashore Project is a nonprofit out of North Bend, Oregon, and these sculptures have been traveling the country doing the thing that good public art does: making the public feel something about a statistic. The 3,000-square-foot exhibition is simultaneously delightful and devastating. There is 75 to 199 million tons of plastic currently in the ocean giving weight behind the whimsy.
This exhibit runs through February 2027, but I recommend going soon, because this summer at The Nat is shaping up to be genuinely fun.
If you have kids, the obvious call is their hands-on weekend activities, naturalist encounters, birds of prey, and community art projects. But the adults-only programming is equally compelling. On Friday nights, the exhibition transforms into an ocean-themed “dive bar” as part of the 21+ Nat at Night series, with half-price admission after 5 p.m., beer with a scientist during Nature on Tap, delicious food from The Craft Taco in the atrium, and sunset on the roof with a TGIF cocktail. Sundays in June, July, and August feature a new rooftop brunch with mimosas and bites from Wolfish by Wolf in the Woods.
There are also new giant-screen films — Ocean Paradise, narrated by Diane Lane, with music from Coldplay and Jack Johnson, and Back From the Brink, narrated by Claire Danes — both included with paid admission. Special shout out to The Moth Party on July 24th from 8 p.m. – 10 p.m., where Museum scientists attract moths to an outdoor location for anyone wandering through the park. Does it get more wholesome than that?
The Nat has been a fixture of this city since 1874. Its legacy comes from powerful, thoughtful installations. This summer, it reminds us that San Diego has a complicated relationship with the ocean. We live next to it, we play in it, we sell real estate and food with views of it. We also litter in it. Ocean Paradise and Washed Ashore ask us to reckon with our responsibility, but do so in a generous, beautiful way in a gorgeous space. Let’s rally to support the Nat as it continues to support us.
The Nat is at 1788 El Prado in Balboa Park. Washed Ashore opens May 22. More at sdnat.org.
