The forest is among the most familiar settings for myths and fairy tales, representing hidden places of the unknown, where danger may lurk in the shadows. Forests and woodlands often evoke feelings of mystery, magic and adventure. With that in mind, Fernbank Museum invites you to take a walk on the supernatural side with its Halloween-inspired exhibition, “Woodland Spirits.” Curator Bobbi Hohmann is the vice president of programming and collections for Fernbank Museum, and she joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to talk about the outdoor experience, now in its fifth year at the museum.
Interview highlights:
How Fernbank brainstormed a mysterious, twilight “walk in the woods” experience:
“Five and a half, six years ago, we started discussing what could we do in our newly opened outdoor space, which is called ‘Wildwood.’ It’s an area immediately behind the museum,” Hohmann explained. “We’ve got trees that are a hundred feet tall, so everything seemed diminutive when put outdoors and so we started thinking of sculptures. And we didn’t really want to do just traditional fine arts type sculptures, and really loved the idea of focusing on the supernatural and playing up that connection with fall and Halloween.”
“We saw a few artists here locally in town that had some metalwork, some sculptural elements that really we were drawn to,” said Hohmann. “We started building, and building on our ideas in collaboration with Laura Lewis who is the artist that we work with. So we didn’t set off to say, ‘Let’s create chicken wire sculptures.’ But one of us had seen an example of a chicken wire sculpture and thought, ‘What could we do with that and make it our own?'”
What woodland denizens visitors might encounter:
“This year we have an elevated boardwalk and walking paths throughout Wildwood, and so some of the scenes that are set are very obvious, very visible. Some are a little bit more tucked away and hidden,” Hohmann elaborated. “We have just over 40 individual sculptures, but many of those are grouped in little vignettes or scenes. So for example, we took some inspiration from one of the Harry Potter movies and we have a very large mother spider and a grouping of little spiderlings that are visible in one area. We have a grouping of wolves that are howling. We have an owl that’s scaring a cat.”
“Our goal was not to be gruesome and not to be scary, but really have these kind of ‘spirits’ coexisting out in nature with us. So some of the spirits look like a girl whose dress is trailing behind her. Some are a little bit more, menacing might be the word, but certainly not scary. I think also with the chicken wire you can see through the chicken wire, so sometimes you have to walk around the subject matter to really kind of understand what you’re looking at. So I would say honestly that this display, this exhibit is accessible for all of our audiences.”
A host of other Halloween activities for kids and adults:
“We love our Family Discovery Day, so we have a Discovery Day called ‘Creepy Crawlies’ that’s on Oct. 22 from 10:00 to 1:00. So you’ll get to meet some of Fernbank’s ‘animal ambassadors’ and some other Halloween-type activities. We’ve got ‘Dino Trick or Treat’ on Oct. 29 … We also have programs that are more geared towards adults, so we have — and we’ve had it for many years — ‘Fright Night,’ which is on Oct. 28 from 7:00 to 11:00 PM, so that’s for our older audience. There’s always live music and a bar and dancing and typically people come in costume,” said Hohmann. “We try to go all out for the holiday Halloween season.”
The Fernbank Museum’s “Woodland Spirits” sculpture garden experience is open through Nov. 6. More information about this and other Halloween-related events at the museum can be found at www.fernbankmuseum.org/experiences/exhibits/special-exhibits/woodland-spirits.
