WaterMarks: Where Art Meets Science

“WaterMarks: Where Art Meets Science” held its second week-long series of presentations, dialogues, and activities at the ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Puerto Rico. The event convened a wide variety of artists including installation artists, visual artists, sound designers, and documentary makers whose work focuses on environmental issues, specifically water. WaterMarks workshops were offered Monday through Friday during the lunch break and were fully attended by scientists at the conference as well as contingents of artists and art students residing in Puerto Rico. Monday featured a day-long sculptural installation by local artist Sarabel Santos Negron, director of the Museum of Art in Bayamón, Puerto Rico (Fig. 1). Ms. Santos was able to respond to comments and questions while she worked on a piece that used recycled plastic to suggest a bleached coral reef. The installation remained on site for the rest of the week. On Tuesday Liz Miller presented a hands-on demonstration of 360 Camera as a means of bringing people a more intimate experience of natural experiences such as a thrilling ascent up a towering pine to peek at the fledglings in a hawk's nest. For this project, SwampScapes, Miller featured the work of a disturbance ecologist, an algae specialist, and a raptor biologist. In addition to featuring the unique expertise of participating biologists, she integrated the “swampcalls” of a collaborating biologist (Kathleen Smith) of Crew Land and Water Trust, and with her students transformed them into an interactive swamp symphony. Miller spoke to the challenges of turning data into compelling visualizations in The Shore Line that also featured profiles of inspiring scientists. Finally, Miller suggested principles to keep in mind when staging new collaborations between artists and scientists (Fig. 2). On Wednesday, a group of artists and scientists from Puerto Rico presented Poetic Science as a case study of a highly successful collaboration that was initiated in their El Yunque National Forest (2013). The initiative was launched by The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute and the Colorado Art Ranch with the idea of promoting artist residences in six different ecosystems in the United States. El Yunque was chosen as a site and the project was run locally by the USDA Forest Service Institute of Tropical Forestry (IITF). The IITF insisted that if they were to host international artists, local artists should also be ensured participation. Eight artists were chosen and half of them were from Puerto Rico. The project was designed to celebrate the resources protected under the Wilderness Act (1964) in order to establish the National Wilderness Preservation System. A highlight of this particular initiative was the way that interaction between scientists and artists was staged over a month of coresidence in the rainforest, El Yunque. For the first 3 weeks, the artists were asked to shadow the scientists as they went about their daily work, to observe, ask and learn and there were no expectations for final products. In fact it was not until the final week that the artists were given the time to make work. Both the scientists and the artists on the panel emphasized the importance of this “permission.” A proposal for a show “Poetic Science” came later once relationships, trust, and understanding were established. Marianne Ramirez Aponte of The Museum of Contemporary Art then initiated “Poetic Science” and invited artist and scientists to contribute a work of art to the show. Scientist Tamara Heartsill contributed a sound installation allowing visitors to “eavesdrop” on the wildlife in the area. The museum hosted a series of accompanying events including an Artposium that involved a meaningful dialogue between artists and scientists. The group won first prize for collective expositions, an honor that brought much attention to the initiative, a show in Chicago, and spawned ideas for the next project (Fig. 3). On Thursday, Buster Simpson (Seattle, WA) presented an energizing retrospective of his irreverent and elegant water-based installations throughout the greater metropolitan area. His body of work over the last few decades has been so influential that he is often contracted to participate along with architects and landscape architects in the creation of regional Master Plans. As part of his session, Buster handed out large sticks of chalk, a marine “ancestor,” encouraging participants to enliven the asphalt with poetry. The week concluded Friday with a presentation by Lauren Elder (Oakland, CA) on five projects exemplifying various methods to solicit deep public engagement on issues of climate change phenomena such as rapid glacier melt and sea level rise. She often consults hydrologists and engineers for background information. Lauren has worked with a range of communities and ages, and audience members were particularly inspired by a project that she developed with youth via a Nature Interpretation Center where they were asked to design solutions for the issues of sea level rise “on their doorstep.” She places particular focus on the next generation as they will be deeply challenged by environmental changes (Fig. 4). She finds that youth respond with “fearless, boundless creativity” and model practical responses that adults would do well to consider. The WaterMarks initiative was first introduced into the ASLO meeting calendar (Victoria, BC, June 2018) by Ajit Subramaniam in the belief that both disciplines have much to offer each other in terms of methods and materials and parallel ways of observing and responding to the natural world. Leonardo da Vinci's work seamlessly blended art and science five centuries ago and we are now returning to that wisdom via institutions, educational policy, and forums such as this, to the surprise and satisfaction of both camps.

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