Tag Archives: Ecology

BioBAT: Spontaneous Emergence of Order

BioBAT Art Space is the first exhibition space in New York City that is entirely dedicated to the intersection of Art and Science. Their inaugural art exhibit, ‘Spontaneous Emergence of Order’ features four interdisciplinary artists who create works based in science and technology.

Spontaneous emergence of order is a form of self-organization out of seeming chaos, the organic forming of systems mastered by no one person or thing, but the unfolding, natural order of a collective of events and actions. The four artists in this exhibit are sifting through this ordered chaos and creating their own new order based on their findings. Whether their interest is in the biological or the technological their artworks are all connected through the messiness of life itself and our connections to the natural world.

Being Plastic

Rebecca Gasior Altman is a writer and sociologist. Her work explores the social history of chemistry, plastics, pollution and environmental legacy— what we pass from one generation to the next. She holds a PhD in environmental sociology from Brown University, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Science and Environmental Health Network, a national think-tank.

What I see around me

“When you are looking closely at the world it is impossible not to see damage and – if you have some understanding of what you are looking at – absence, so increasingly my work is motivated by the catastrophic impact of human actions on the natural world. I am inspired and appalled in equal measure by what I see around me.”

Emma Tuck’s work is informed by natural forms and patterns, refracted through the psychological, the political and the trivial.

Bodies of Water

“We are all bodies of water! What we do to water, we do to every body, including ourselves.”

Astrida Neimanis writes mostly about bodies, water and weather, in an intersectional feminist mode. Her most recent monograph is Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology. She is currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies and Key Researcher at the Sydney Environment Institute at the University of Sydney, on Gadigal land, in Australia.

Perspectives on altering our perceptions of water

“The challenges we face with water are largely a consequence of how we perceive it in postmodern industrialized societies. Despite the myriad ways that water connects us to the world, our management and engineering of it seldom reflects that realization. Whereas expanding our perceptions of water may appear to be a relatively simple task, there are biological and behavioral factors that complicate our capacity and inclination to do so. Given the complex processes and systems that govern water in nature, our mimicking its patterns could supplement our comprehending or predicting them. ”

D.L. Marrin (nickname West) is an applied scientist specializing in biogeochemistry, water resources and aquatic ecology.

Reading the River

“The idea of interconnectedness has been one of the central themes of my water work for over forty years. Water issues are vast and present intricately complex problems. I think that the solutions and suggestions for actions lie in a diversity of approaches. It will take all of us working together cooperatively to come to the assistance of bodies of water around the globe. In this radically interconnected world it behooves each of us to compassionately take care of each other and our environment, because we are one and the same.”

In her pioneering inter-disciplinary practice, Basia Irland focusses on rivers and watersheds, water scarcity, climate change, ecological restoration and waterborne diseases. Her poetic, socially-engaged work endeavours to reconnect people with their local waterways in order to foster care, appreciation and responsibility.

Anthropocene

Richelle Gribble’s exhibition, ‘Anthropocene’, took place at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery (New Orleans, LA) between May and July 2018. With a strong interest in environmentalism, the artist examines human impact on nature and the biological consequences of human influence. Gribble’s highly conceptual work includes painting, drawing and sculpture.

All aboard the Antarctic Biennale in Venice

The participants in the Antarctic Biennale international project have returned from their first art expedition to Antarctica. About 100 people from around the world – artists, architects, researchers, poets, writers, musicians and philosophers – set off on board a scientific research vessel, the Academic Sergei Vavilov, from the port of Ushuaia to the Antarctic Circle. During the artistic voyage, the participants traveled around 2,000 nautical miles (4,000 km), making over 12 landings on the shore of the Antarctic peninsula and on islands surrounding Earth’s most southerly continent. In total, on the continent’s territory, over 20 artistic projects were carried out, including performances, installations, exhibitions and sound-art experiments, as well as over 15 research sessions and philosophical discussions.

In this article, Clive Adams reviews their work and exhibition at the 2017 Venice Biennale. Clive is the founder director of the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World, now based at Dartington in Devon. When working for Fabian Carlsson Gallery in London, he was involved in a project in which artist Andy Goldsworthy made the first sculpture at the North Pole in 1989

The Domestication of Plastic

Heather Davis is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at the Pennsylvania State University where she researches the ethology of plastic and its links to petrocapitalism. She is the co-editor (with Etienne Turpin) of ‘Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies’ (Open Humanities Press, 2015) and ‘Desire Change: Contemporary Feminist Art in Canada’ (MAWA/McGill Queen’s UP, forthcoming 2017).