- July 16, 2025 - Insectarium : Behind the scenes at the Insectarium, Education
Creating new costumes for the event: a noteworthy initiative stemming from ecological concerns and propelled by the commitment of an entire team!
The pollinator insects festival
Every summer since 2023, Les Butineries has been celebrating pollinators in a festive and family-friendly atmosphere. This year, the pollinator insects festival will give visitors a chance to meet experts, learn how to recognize pollinators and attract them to the garden, prepare a gourmet recipe that wouldn’t exist without pollinators, and listen to storytelling accompanied by an OSM musician. In short, an exciting program conjured up by the Insectarium team to celebrate the importance of pollinators, and where everyone has a good time.
As this upcoming edition of Les Butineries was being prepared, an idea took shape behind the scenes… At last year’s edition, the kids loved the little pollinators parade, but the problem was, the cardboard wings on the costumes they’d been supplied with limited their movements. So our idea was to rethink those costumes.
When commitment gives rise to creativity
All this time, educational and promotional material had been piling up in Espace pour la vie storerooms. Plus, the museum complex’s new graphic signature was about to make certain promotional items obsolete. We wanted to find the most environmentally friendly way of disposing of everything. And so, Carolina Torres, educational-program officer at the Insectarium, had the idea of creating pollinator-wing costumes out of recycled materials. She got in touch with the teams at other Espace pour la vie museums to salvage whatever could be salvaged – and colleagues answered the call enthusiastically. “They also wanted to bring their well-guarded treasures back to life,” Carolina recalls.
To turn its vision into reality, the Insectarium reached out to Bianca Van Der Mije, a Montréal artist specializing in the creation of reusable festive accessories. After we gathered, selected and washed the raw materials, then carried out various tests on the fabrics, the challenge of fashioning wings 100 percent from recycled materials was well and truly met!
Of course, the costumes were developed in close collaboration with the Insectarium to make sure that there was a faithful, rigorous representation of the chosen species from one end of the artistic process to the other. The result: each costume presents the distinctive characteristics of the five Québec pollinators selected for the occasion: the white admiral butterfly, the Canadian tiger butterfly, the narrow-headed marsh fly, the large bee-fly and the virescent green metallic bee.
A message taking flight
Through this initiative, the Insectarium is demonstrating yet again that it’s possible to combine creativity, education and socioecological transition. You’ll have noticed that Les Butineries is a whole lot more than a party. It’s a space where we experiment with “entomophilia”1 – meaning where we learn to appreciate insects in order to better protect them. And thanks to this wonderful eco-artistic initiative, we’re restoring value to what seemed to be lost. In a word, a project that reflects everything Espace pour la vie cherishes!
And as for the little pollinators parade, thanks to the bond being created between child and insect with these unique, colorful costumes, what’s being celebrated all at once is the beauty of living things, pollinator diversity, and a collective involvement in the socioecological transition.
Visit us at the Insectarium to discover
Les Butineries, the pollinator insects festival.
1 In the context of the new biophilia-inspired Insectarium, we're giving a new meaning to the term entomophilia, that being love of, respect for and enhanced appreciation of insects.
