40 Artisans Prepare to Transform Zoo for Chinese Lantern Festival

Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo is preparing to undergo a transformation in time for Chinese New Year Celebrations.

A team of 40 artisans have arrived in town from the village of Zigong in China. That village, Lowry Park noted in a media release, is famed as the birthplace of the Chinese Lantern Festival of Lights.

While here, the artisans will hand-craft an exhibit for the zoo’s own celebration, which opens Feb. 28 during the traditional Chinese New Year celebrations, which run Feb. 19 through March 5 in China.

“The craftsmen traveled 7,500 miles to Tampa where they will spend four weeks manually constructing the large-scale illuminated displays,” the media release stated. “The ancient art of lantern making requires years of study in the trade combined with modern technologies.”

To create the lanterns, artists drawn patterns of the desired structure on the ground and then design and weld 3-dimensional wire frames. Once that’s complete, LED lights are added to the framework and silk fabric is placed over the frames. The zoo is planning to unveil 30 different structural scenes throughout a 26-acre area. These scenes, the media release said, will represent “traditional Chinese themes from nature to folklore and groups of larger-than-life zoo animals like elephants and rhinos.”

Lowry Park’s exhibit, dubbed Zoominations, is expected to be one of the largest lantern festivals in the United States. The exhibition will also feature performances by Chinese acrobats and an artisan market with handmade items. It will remain in place from Feb. 28 until May 31.

For more information on the exhibit, visit Lowry Park online. The exhibit’s construction can also be followed on Facebook.

Photo courtesy of Lowry Park Zoo

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