Giant Insect World encourages a greater appreciation of the delicate beauty of insects and their critical role in nature’s eco-system through creative public outreach.
It is a project run by Visioning Lab Ltd in collaboration with clients and partners.
Timeline
Giant Insect World has origins in multiple projects by Visioning Lab since its formation in 2019.
2019 RHS Garden Show, Tatton Hall
“We’re waking up the butterflies from their sleep”
Tatton Hall volunteer
We make a butterfly-themed augmented reality experience showing butterflies drawn by artist Jacki Clark in virtual reality for the Tatton stand at their RHS garden show. Visitors to the stand use an app installed on a handheld tablet to ‘popup’ animated butterfly drawings, using photos of flowers and butterflies as ‘trigger’ images.
2020 Insect Gallery launch, Manchester Museum
We support the launch of the insect gallery at Manchester museum showing butterflies drawn in VR in an augmented reality app. The real-bodies of butterflies in the display cases work as ‘triggers’ for the experience.
We call it Release the Spirit as the dancing butterfly drawings evoke ghosts emerging from the butterfly bodies in the cases.
2020-2 PopupView, Creative England/Innovate UK/University of Salford
We develop a series of nature-themed insect augmented reality experiences and produce the PopupView AR platform hosting them. We run AR-making workshops with artists, musicians and producers as well as art and design students.
One of the nature AR experiences includes 3D scans of real insects working with DiNARDA insects scanned by a German research lab.
2020 Halloween Insect Shindig, Chorlton Arts Festival
For a Halloween virtual experience with the Chorlton Arts Festival, we use Mozilla Hubs, to develop a VR/3D virtual environment with 3D scans of real insects. We make the insects giant and the avatars tiny. Visitors to the experience can fly around and inside the bodies of the insects, seeing their anatomy up-close.
2021 Heritage Story trails, Manchester / Lancashire / Lake District
We develop soundwalks with partners in Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria, with a heritage and nature theme including capturing passages from Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal for audio walks around Grasmere, celebrating coastal wildlife in Fleetwood and industrial heritage narratives around central Manchester.
2022 Graphic novels, Online
We develop story concepts for online graphic novel platform Webtoons synchronising with outreach in Fleetwood, Manchester and online. The story themes include imagining post-oil futures, time travel, solar punk and folklore nature themes.
2023 We love Peel Park, Salford
We work with the University of Salford creative writing academics, community organisation Loaves and Fishes and local community members to develop a film-poem that celebrates the nature, heritage and social aspects of Peel Park, the first British public park.
2024 AI Ontology Maker, international (Nepal, South Korea, Malaysia)
In Nepal, we collaborate with Aston University on the language used to deliver disaster recovery workshops
We develop an AI-enabled tool for making glossaries, taxonomies and ontologies for different sectors and countries and this includes insects. We develop relationships internationally and devise new collaborations. Gen AI becomes a key part of our workflow and project development.
2025 Giant Insect World, international
We bring together multiple threads from our previous projects to develop and launch Giant Insect World as a multimedia, multidimensional touring experience with the goal of changing perceptions about insects in the UK and abroad.
