Tag Archives: Ecology

Tree Veneration in the Time of the Anthropocene: Why Trees Matter and Why a Cultural Response Matters Too

This article introduces the Tree Veneration Society (TVS), an interdisciplinary charity of eco-artists and scientists dedicated to fostering cultural and ecological awareness of trees. While scientific research clearly demonstrates the essential role of forests in climate regulation and biodiversity, the article argues that meaningful environmental action also requires shifts in perception, values, and cultural narratives. Drawing on Deep Ecology and eco-art practice, the article presents tree veneration as a relational framework that reconnects humans with the living world. TVS’s exhibitions, workshops, and public programs are discussed as practical models for cultivating ecological care and responsibility.

Floating Body

Siobhán McDonald is an Irish artist based in Dublin. In a practice that emphasizes field work and collaboration she works with natural materials, withdrawing them from their cycles of generation, growth and decay. Through painting, film, sound and sculpture McDonald explores Dublin Port as a gateway of exchange—reimagined as a porous space of interspecies cohabitation. This haunting journey along the wetland—located on the edges of the port—is a breathing, living system that is able to respond to sea level rise.

Chris Booth: Sculpture into Ecology

Chris Booth is a sculptor who works closely with the land, earth forms, and indigenous peoples of the region(s) where he creates his monumental sculptural art works. His way of working emphasizes communication and exchange between indigenous and colonial cultures and the creation of meaningful environmental art works. In this interview with art and ecology author, John K. Grande, he discusses his ideas and work.

NILS-UDO: Towards Nature

NILS-UDO is a German artist from Bavaria who has been creating environmental art since the 1960s when he moved away from painting and the studio in 1972 and began to work with, and in, nature. He began as a painter on traditional surfaces, in Paris, but moved to his home country in Bavaria and started to plant creations, putting them in Nature’s hands to develop, and eventually disappear. As his work became more ephemeral, he introduced photography as part of his art to document and share it. In this interview with art and ecology author, John K. Grande, he discusses his ideas and work.

Whales- a Deeper Dialogue

Tessa Campbell Fraser is a British painter and sculptor based in Oxfordshire UK. Born in Edinburgh, she studied at Chelsea School of Art and afterwards established herself as one of the country’s leading animal artists. Her exhibition, ‘Whales- a Deeper Dialogue’ seeks to unravel the interspecies communication between man and animal that is currently a hot topic in scientific research.

Do mushrooms really use language to talk to each other? A fungi expert investigates

Katie Field is Professor in Plant-Soil Processes, University of Sheffield.
“I have two key research interests. The first is plant-fungal symbioses and their applications in sustainable agriculture. Today, it is estimated that more than 80% of land plants, representing over 90% of plant families, form nutritional symbioses with soil-dwelling fungi. My research aims to expand our understanding of these symbioses with important applications in sustainable agriculture.
I’m also interested in the evolution of plant-fungal symbioses, and in particular how the biotic and abiotic environments interact to drive plant evolution and the development of the terrestrial biosphere. This key question underpins my research into the interactions between ancient land plant lineages and symbiotic soil fungi. Plant-fungal symbioses date back to when plants first colonized Earth’s landmasses more than 475 million years ago, and we are only just starting to understand the diversity, structure and physiological function of the relationships between early branching lineages of land plants and their symbiotic fungi. My research aims to shed new light on the role fungal symbionts may have played in the development of Earth’s ecosystems”.

The Encounters Trilogy

Garry Kennard is a painter, writer and founding director of Art and Mind (www.artandmind.org). A fascination with how the brain reacts to works of art has lead Kennard to research, write and lecture on these topics. With Rita Carter and Annabel Huxley he devised and directed the unique Art and Mind Festivals which attracted leading artists and scientists to explore what light the brain sciences can throw on contemporary culture.

From glowing corals to vomiting shrimp, animals have used bioluminescence to communicate for millions of years – here’s what scientists still don’t know about it

Danielle DeLeo is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Florida International University and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, using genomic techniques to study the evolution of bioluminescence and vision in the deep sea. “My additional projects harness the power of genomics to better understand how marine invertebrates respond and adapt to both natural and anthropogenic environmental conditions.”

Andrea Quattrini is a Research Zoologist and Curator of Anthozoa in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology. She studies the ecology and evolution of corals and associated communities, and often focuses her questions on those that live in the most poorly studied environment on earth—the deep sea. Andrea strives to work on projects that directly connect with resource managers in order to help effectively conserve vulnerable marine ecosystems in the face of global ocean change

Talking to animals

Tom Mustill is a biologist turned filmmaker and writer.

His work with David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg, Stephen Fry and conservation and science heroes across the globe have won over 30 international awards, including two Webbys, a Wildscreen Panda, two Jackson Wild Awards and been nominated for a Primetime Emmy.

His book “How to Speak Whale: a Voyage into the Future of Animal Communication” is out now