Cover typographic modeling based on the JSMA floor plan by Marion O Rosas

Four Shows on Art & EcologyResearch, Developted and Never Mounted

by Students of The Clarks Honors CollegeUniversity of Oregon

Fall 2013

Thanks

to all the artist that have inspired us in this endeavor.

Specially Andrea Polli who visited with us in person

this term, and whose work and generoustiy was of

great encouragment.

forewordForegone is a collection of four exhibitions curated by honors students in a class called Art & Ecology dur-

ing the fall of 2013. They are an exceptional group of students. Although none came to this course as art-

ists, all seem to have caught on very quickly to the complicated role that contemporary art has forged for

itself in culture. We have studied historically significant artists such as Joseph Beuys, Agnes Denes and

Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison, who can be see as having set the terms for what is now sometimes

called the eco-art movement. We have examined the work of many contemporary artists and the different

ways they engage culture surrounding these pressing issues.

Key questions that have guided us include: What role can artists play in the face of global climate change

and increasing environmental devastation? How is art’s approach different than that of science? How

are each framing problems through the questions they ask? How can a field of practice such as art, one

that refuses boundaries, effectively make a difference? There are no simple answers. There are many; as

many as are manifested by the ongoing work of artists challenging themselves to engage these issues. As

such, neither a final exam nor a research paper made sense, because they would not be able to address

these boundary-defying works. Instead, I asked the students to create four exhibitions, and to use the

curatorial model to examine particular artists and works and to project how art might advance the dialogue

around the important environmental issues of our times.

Thus this is a meta-exhibition catalogue of four shows under the title Foregone. Foregone because we

want to dispel any foregone conclusions. Foregone for the homonym of four —the four exhibitions you’ll

find here. Foregone for our forlorn sense of the environmental losses that have already occurred. And

Foregone pointing towards a sense of absence of art shows that will never actually be mounted. The exhi-

bitions are: Walking in Place, curated by Casey Brogan, Joy Hurlburt, Wade Martin, Zoe Weiss, and Kelsey

West; Terramorphology, curated by Makenzie Shepherd, Manny Garcia, Sophie Thackary, and Marion Ro-

sas; Stuffed Animals: Exploring Ecological Values through Animal-Themed Art, curated by Zoë Livelybrooks,

Zane Mowery, Ian Murphy, and Aubrey West; and Exchange: Uninvited Collaboration with Nature, curated

by Megan Gleason, Elliot Goodrich, Jeana Lobdell, and Anna Karvina Pidong.

Enjoy,

Colin IvesAssociate Professor of Digital ArtsAffiliate Faculty Ecological Studies

Casey Brogan

I am a junior at the University of

Oregon majoring in Public Relations.

With no previous experience in art or

environmental studies, I was interested

in this course and the opportunity to

learn about these two fields and how

they interact.

Joy Hurlburt

I am a junior at the University of

Oregon studying Computer Science.

With a minor in Chemistry, my

education is deals extensively with the

sciences. I took this course because I

knew I would be introduced to new

perspectives and ecological issues.

This course discussed the valuable

role art plays in raising awareness for

environmental issues.

Wade Martin

As a junior at the University of Oregon

studying Environmental Science, I am

intrigued by the way humans choose

to interact with their environment. This

art and ecology course served as an

introduction to a new manner in which

the environmental issues I have

studied can be represented and

affects public discourse.

Zoe Weiss

I am a senior at the University of

Oregon, studying Environmental

Studies and Biology. My interests lie in

environmental education and wildlife

conservation. I took this course to

combine my interests and knowledge

in environmental issues with a better

understanding of approaches for

reaching audiences outside of the

disciplines of science and social

studies.

Kelsey West

I am a junior at University of Oregon,

studying Sociology and Planning,

Public Policy, and Management. I am

interested in education reform and

service learning. I enrolled in this

course as a way to further my

understanding of art and how it can be

used as a catalyst for social change.

CURATORS

  Walking in Place: An Introduction

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines

urbanization as “the process by which towns and

cities are formed and become larger as more and

more people begin living and working in central

areas.”1 The latest reports show that cities will

continue to grow and the rural-to-urban migration

will continue into the future.2 In June of 2008,

1 1 “Urbanization.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.2 2 “Global Agenda Council on Urbanization 2012-2014 | World Economic Forum - Global Agenda Council on Urbanization 2012-2014.” Global Agenda Council on Urbanization 2012-2014. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2013

The Nature Conservancy and Harvard University

published a study that examines the effects of

the continuing expansion of cities on nature and

people. The report was created in response to

a 2007 United Nations study that found that

at least 50 percent of the world’s population

is living in cities; a city the size of Vancouver is

being built every week. This rapid growth has had

consequences for the environment.3

3 3 “Global Impact of Urbanization Threatening World’s Biodiversity and Natural Resources.”ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 17 June 2008. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.

Several findings of the study highlight the great

impacts of the growing pace of urbanization on the

environment:

• Urban growth affects areas that contain some

of the highest densities of endemic species

in the world. Endemic species live only in a

certain geographical area, so if their existence is

threatened by urbanization, global extinction is

possible.

• 8% of recent “endangered” listings have been

due to the effects of urbanization, a number that

will probably rise as the phenomenon continues

to increase its pace.

• The distances between cities and protected

areas are shrinking. This has the potential

to threaten these areas with the increased

risk of resource extraction and its associated

consequences.4

These results highlight the consequences of

urbanization for biodiversity and ecosystem

integrity. Our natural areas are threatened by the

continuation of the trend of migration towards cities,

and the resultant expansion of urban areas. To

preserve these wild spaces will require a concerted

effort on the part of many diverse stakeholders:

governments, city planners, conservationists. The

question remains, however, of how to bring about a

conservationist mindset in a human population that

seems focused on expansion at any cost. Given

the increasing rates of urbanization, the instillation

of such an ethic seems at once necessary and out 4 4 “Global Impact of Urbanization Threatening World’s Biodiversity and Natural Resources.”

of reach. To address this need, this show turns to

a simple concept: the idea of going for a walk. The

connection will perhaps become more explicit after

discussing a few examples of artists who walk.

One of these is Hamish Fulton. Educated at the

Hammersmith College of Art, St. Martin’s School

of Art, and Royal College of Art in London, he has

completed solo walks in countries all over Europe,

Asia, the United States, Australia, and many other

places, as well three group walking projects in

Japan, Italy, and France.5 To commemorate these

walks he has created visuals that record the

experience, such as this image from his 1986 and

1991 walks in Caingorms, Scotland.

One of the central themes of Fulton’s work is a

“direct physical engagement with landscape.”6

Rather than being about the production of an

object, his art celebrates the act of the walk itself,

by creating only pieces inspired by each individual

walk experience. The goal of these walks and their

accompanying visual components: to “advertise

a spiritual relationship with a variety of life forms:

sharks, wolves, coyotes, clean water for drinking.”7

Clearly, Fulton is thinking in terms of what could be

considered a conservation ethic for both organisms

and the places that support them. Furthermore, he 5 5 “HAMISH FULTON _____ WALKING ARTIST ___ Version 01 __.” HAMISH FULTON _____ WALKING ARTIST ___ Version 01 __. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.6 6 “THE ARTISTS.” Personal Structures HAMISH FULTON. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.7 7 Grande, John K. “No Walk, No Work! Hamish Fulton.” Art Nature Dialogues: Interviews with Environmental Artists. Albany: State University of New York, 2004. 126-38. Print.

strives in his work to leave no trace as a result of

walks, further emphasizing his concern with both

advocating and embodying preservationist ethics.

Hamish Fulton’s art turns the act of a walk into a

piece of art that aestheticizes the song of a bird,

or the foliage of a tree, or a towering mountain. By

presenting a vision of nature in its beauty, he hopes

to emphasize the importance of their conservation.8

Another way of conceptualizing this is that he

connects the aesthetic to a sense of place, which

then inspires conservation of said place.

Dan Firth further explores this approach in his

discussion of aesthetic, place-based approach to

nature conservation. According to Firth, “aesthetic

experience of place is important because it gives us

knowledge by acquaintance of the place, because it

gives meaning to our relationship to the place, and

because it reveals and gives insight to meaningful

relationships within the place.”9 He argues that

considering the aesthetic allows for conservation

decisions that take into account ethical elements,

rather than purely practical or economical ones.

Building on previous place-based approaches

that have focused on the importance of historical

narrative in creating a sense of place, he advocates

the aesthetic experience as another, crucial element

of creating meaningful relationships with nature,

and therefore instilling the desire to preserve it.10

What exactly is this seemingly vague term, “place”?

8 8 Ibid. 9 9 Firth, Dan. “The Role of Aesthetic Considerations in a Narrative Based Approach to Nature Conservation.” Ethics & the Environment 13.2 (2008): 77-100. Print.10 10 Ibid.

Firth borrows a definition from Brooks:

By places I mean ambiguously bordered areas

that could be natural, rural, or urban, but that

are perceived to have some kind of identifiable

character that leads us to recognizing them as

specific places.11

“Place,” and therefore conservation of place, is

therefore not just limited to nature. The show

proposed here includes artists who explore the

aesthetics, both purely visual and also non-

visual, of both cities and natural settings, as well

as interactions between the two. There are two

aspects of this show still to be explored. One, why

include both the urban and the rural? Two, why use

visual and auditory artists?

The first question is not easily answered. Urban

areas don’t need conservation; if anything, the

preservation of nature depends on slowing the

growth of urbanization, as discussed previously.

This question can be answered by turning to

a concept that was recognized, at least in the

academic literature, beginning in the 1980s: the

breaking-down of the divide between nature and

culture. In fields as far-ranging as environmental

sociology, anthropology, geology, and history,

there has been a growing understanding that

“the environment should not be introduced as

just another variable or theme, but as a radically

11 11 Ibid.

new way of thinking about society.”12 What this

means, substantively, is that human society can

be understood only in the context of nature, and

conversely, nature is inextricably linked to culture.13

Traditional divides between the two across many

disciplines have become tenuous; this exhibit seeks

to explore and emphasize that permeability by

including the aesthetic experience of both natural

and urban contexts. Hopefully, along with the

dissolution of the nature/culture divide comes the

recognition that our fate is tied to environmental

health, and that perhaps we would be well-advised

to preserve it.

The second question can be answered by returning

to Hamish Fulton and the concept of a walk. The

concept we have created is that of recreating

the experience of a walk within the gallery space;

therefore, the engagement of the senses other than

just visual is essential. One might ask, why not just

go for a walk? What does an art exhibit offer that

real experience of an urban or natural area cannot?

The answer to this lies in the earlier discussion of

the role of aesthetics in creating a sense of place,

and therefore encouraging conservation. Each

of the artists represented in this show have been

chosen because they explore the aesthetics of

either an urban or natural context, each different

from the next; therefore, they come together to

create a somewhat complete aesthetic experience

12 12 Goldman, Michael, and Rachel A. Schurman. “Closing the “Great Divide”: New Social Theory on Society and Nature.” Annual Review of Sociology 26.1 (2000): 563-84. Print.13 13 Ibid.

of a diversity of places. The hope is that the

recreation of a walk through a gallery space will

highlight the aesthetic experience of a walk, and

therefore emphasize the importance of conserving

each of the subjects represented.

The layout of the exhibit has been created to

loosely evoke the experience of a walk first

through an urban environment, then through a rural

environment. To engage the senses, a mixture of

visual and auditory artists has been included. The

audio exhibits are presented through the use of

“spotlight speakers” that immerse the audience in

sound upon approach. A schematic of the layout

has been included further on in this section.

Of course, it is impossible to fully experience a walk

within an indoor environment. It is our belief that the

full aesthetic experience can only be realized in the

outdoors, whether the walk takes place through a

city or nature. Therefore, and to address the fact

that this show will never occur, we have proposed a

walk alongside our gallery exhibit.

The Walk Location: this walk could take place

anywhere, over any distance or particular path.

The Object: much like the artists portrayed in

our exhibit, we invite participants to record their

aesthetic experience, whether through photos,

audio, or collection of found objects. By doing

so, we hope to evoke a stronger sense of place

in participants through their aesthetic experience

of choice, and hopefully encourage them to

take action to conserve what they encounter.

Whether that means preserving an open prairie

from encroaching urbanization or energizing a

neighborhood is not important; although this

exhibit examines issues of urbanization, it is also

concerned with preservation of place in general.

The Product: alongside the gallery exhibit, we

have created a website for walkers to share their

stories and visual/auditory products. In this way, we

hope to reach audiences from a range of contexts

and places, emphasizing the continuity of nature,

culture, and place. The following pages show

some examples of walks taken in a variety of urban

contexts by several of the curators, demonstrating

their recording of place.

Urban Tree Walk- Eugene, OR

Images Citedhttp://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/hamish-fulton-1133http://www.tumblr.com/blog/artandecologyhttp://artandecologywademartin.tumblr.com/

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

Exhibition Plan

Amy Franceschini Amy Franceschini was born and raised

amidst the farming community of

California’s San Joaquin Valley.1 She

received a BFA from San Francisco State

University in 1992; founded Future

Farmers, a collaborative art community, in

1995; and cofounded Free Soil, an

international interdisciplinary organization

that examines social, political, and

environmental notions of space, in 2004.

She has also showed solo work

internationally.2 Her work utilizes many

different mediums, both physical and

virtual, frequently to explore the supposed

dichotomy between humans and nature.

She often focuses her pieces on public

participation to underline the importance

of examining our relationship to nature.3

Because her works often deal with the

supposed conflicts between humans and

1 "The Art, Technology, and Culture 2 "PROJECTS." Futurefarmers. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. 3 "Amy Franceschini." Amy Franceschini. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013

nature and examines notions of

community, sustainability, and technology,

it is ideal for including in a show that

explores notions of land use.4 Particularly,

her work with urban spaces lends itself

well to a discussion of cities. A well-

known example of her work in urban

environments is her community-based

project Victory Gardens 2007+, a pilot

project with the San Francisco

Department for the Environment that

4 "California College of the Arts." Amy Franceschini. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013.

Selected Artists

supports the transformation of unused

spaces into food gardens by distributing

starter kits for home gardeners, education

through hands-on lessons, exhibits, and

web presence and the maintenance of a

city seed bank.5 In conjunction with this

project, Franceschini showed two

pieces at the San Francisco Museum of

Modern Art, the “pogoshovel” and the

“bikebarrow.” She sees these playful

pieces as “propaganda” to lure in a

broad audience with aesthetics, and get

them thinking about issues like urban

agriculture and the interplay between

humans and nature.6 The bikebarrow is

also functional, serving as a delivery

system for VG2007+. “Pogoshovel” and

“Bikebarrow” at SFMOMA. The

wheelbarrow detaches from the bike and

can be used. The pogoshovel is aesthetic

more than functional. This piece

emphasizes the importance of aesthetics

as well as functionality, and correlates

5 "~ What Is Victory Gardens ~." ~ What Is Victory Gardens ~. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. 6 "Practical Propaganda: Amy Franceschini Reinvents the Victory Garden." Art21 Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013.

with the direct experience of nature in

cities emphasized in VG2007+.7

“Ethnobotanical station,” a collaboration

between Amy Franceschini and Myriel

Milicevic. This mobile art piece uses a

combination of workshops, visuals, and

interactive play to examine our

relationships with plants. Specifically, it

addresses the healing and medicinal

properties of plants understood by

traditional folk knowledge, and contrasts

this with modern understandings of the

value of plants. Visitors can see, feel, and

touch actual “specimens.”8

7 "Practical Propaganda: Amy Franceschini Reinvents the Victory Garden." Art21 Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. 8 "Station · Ebotanical Station." Station · Ebotanical Station. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.

James Corner

James Corner is a New York based

landscape architect who has worked to

develop numerous settings internationally

that redefine how the urban landscape

can blend with the natural world. A

graduate from Manchester Metropolitan

University in England, Corner worked with

multiple architecture firms in the area

before making his move to the states.

Now, he is the principle landscape

architect of James Corner Field

Operations which works to develop land

reclamation and planning projects in New

York and Pennsylvania.1

Corner’s work is at the

forefront of the landscape

urbanism movement. It

primarily deals with

repurposing of structures and

settings that fall victim to

anthropogenic destruction.

These areas are rebuilt for

recreational purposes, which

entirely changes the way

humans can interact with their

habitat. A major proponent of

the landscape urbanism movement is the

concept of landscape ecology, which

strives to respect the environment in

which we reside.

High Line (1999-2011) is a series of

landscape architecture projects directed

by Corner in collaboration with numerous

other architects to repurpose an out of

use elevated railway in New York City.

The railway runs along a 1.45 mile section

of the former New York Central Railroad.3

Inspired by foliage that was once native to

the land NYC is located, Corner has

created an attraction that both instigates a 1 James Corner Field Operations, "James Corner." Accessed November 16, 2013.

new type of interaction between

humans and a conventional urban

landmark, as well as boosted the

well-being of a struggling

commercial and residential district.

The installation has been completed

in various segments over the span of

roughly a decade.2

Another of James Corner’s works is

Freshkills Park, a landfill reclamation

project conducted on one of the

largest trash dumps in the world. The

landfill housed a large portion of the waste

produced by New York City in an area

roughly three times the size of central

park. The project began construction in

2008 and is projected to be under works

for roughly 30 years. As a response to our

tendencies to dispose of waste in

environmentally ways, Corner has

developed a plan to increase both the

recreational viability of our urban

landscapes, and increase energy

production by trapping and harvesting

methane gas from the decomposing

material on which the site is constructed.3

2 High Line, "James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio Renfro." Accessed November 16, 2013. 3 NYC Parks, "Freshkills Park." Accessed November 16, 2013

Nico van Hoorn Born in 1949 and based in Nijmegen,

Netherlands, Nico van Hoorn is an artist

interested in the urban from the

perspective of social interaction and

consumerism.1 His work spans a variety of

mediums and subject matter; including

video, photography, and social

networking. Most important to this exhibit

is his tendency to catalog his movement

through urban environments and interact

with discarded products of a consumer

society.

1 van Hoorn, Nico. "Nico van Hoorn." Accessed November 17, 2013.

Nico van Hoorn’s Trashlog offers a type of

art that is unique in the context of this

exhibit. Taking place over a timespan of

three years from May of 2002 to May of

2005, van Hoorn took a walk every day

and collected trash objects of various

natures that he encountered. He then

documented each one in his online trash

blog as well as carefully preserved them

for future exhibits.2 An aspect of this work

that we do not see anywhere else is the

walk, or “drift” through an urban setting,

leaving his path ultimately undisturbed.

This plays a vital role in understand our

relation to place and creating a direct and

intimate experience with our surroundings.

Stemming from the theme of irresponsible

disposal of man-made materials, Crime

Scene works as a satire on the ecological

injustice of littering. Van Hoorn created a

2 van Hoorn, Nico. "Nico van Hoorn Trashlog." Last modified May 05, 2005. Accessed November 17, 2013.

series of literal “crime scenes” at the

locations of discarded electronics and

consumables that he found in his daily

routine.3

A short video entitled Mooi Hé created by

Nico van Hoorn follows a white balloon as

it wafts freely along the ground on a

sidewalk. The film follows it for about two

and a half minutes until it comes to rest

momentarily in a crevice with the words

“Mooi Hé” exposed and pointed toward

the camera.4 The balloon moves with

absolute kinetic freedom, something

central to the Dadaist theory of the Dérive.

3 van Hoorn, Nico. "Illegal Trash Dumping Is A Crime." Last modified August 29, 2012. Accessed November 17, 2013. 4 van Hoorn, Nico. "Ballon." Last modified November 27, 2010. Accessed November 17, 2013.

Christina Kubisch Chrisina Kubisch is a German artist with a

background in painting, music

composition, and electronics. Kubisch’s

studies took place in Hamburg, Graz,

Zürich, and Milano, and her works

incorporate video, sound installations,

sound sculptures, and ultraviolet light.9

Kubisch lives in Hoppegarten, Germany

and works as a professor in sound art,

starting in 1994, at the Academy of Fine

Arts, Saarbrücken, Germany. As a part of

the first generation of sound artists,

Kubisch explored ideas of acoustic space

and time in terms of visual arts while

simultaneously exploring the relationship

between material and form.10 In 2003

Kubisch began a new series of

explorations of public space in which

she studies the electromagnetic fields of

urban environments.11 Kubisch uses the

form of city walks as her medium

through which she experiences the

9 "Biography” Christina Kubisch. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. 10 "Christina Kubisch, Invisible / Inaudible : Five Electrical Walks | Important Records." IMPREC. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. 11 "Electrical Walks: Samples of Raw Sounds." CABINET. Cabinet Magazine, n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.

auditory aspects of urban places.

Kubisch’s ongoing project “Electrical

Walks” uses custom-built headphones

that receive electromagnetic signals from

the surrounding environment.12 Wearing

the specialized headphones, she explores

cities and creates maps for auditory

dérives that include the areas of

significant electromagnetic signals.13 For

example, a walk might include subway

systems, security systems, ATM

machines, etc.14 Kubisch documents her

walks by compiling sound samples she

collects from cities around the world.15

Kubisch loans the headphones to the

12 “Electrical Walks" Christina Kubisch. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. 13 “Electrical Walks" Web. 19 Nov. 2013. 14 "Electrical Walks: Samples of Raw Sounds." Cabinet Magazine, Web. 17 Nov. 2013. 15 "Electrical Walks - Christina Kubisch / Deutsch." YouTube. Goetherussland, 31 May 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.

public so they can participate in their own

auditory dérive.

“Electrical Walks” encourages a new level

of awareness that allows the audience to

interact with their surroundings. “Nothing

looks the way it sounds. And nothing

sounds the way it looks”.16 Having access

to an otherwise invisible network of

signals allows people to see define the

idea of place in terms of sounds rather

than visuals.

Consecutio Temporum, 1993. Kleve,

Germany. Christina Kubisch incorporates

light and sound in order to introduce new

ways to perceive space.17 Since 1986

16 "Christina Kubisch” IMPREC. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. 17 "Works; Light and Sound Rooms” Christina Kubisch. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.

Kubisch introduced light to increase the

intensity of the listenting experience.18

Performance with auralisation of

electromagnetic fields June 30, 2011 in

Mainz, Germany.19 Christina Kubisch

combines her background in music,

performance, and composition in concert.

This photo is taken from Kubisch’s

performance with Alvin Curran, Domenico

Scianjo, and Kaspar König.

18 "Works; Light and Sound Rooms” Web. 19 Nov. 2013. 19 "Works; Performances” Christina Kubisch. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.

Mark Bain Mark Bain is an American artist from

Seattle, Washington. He graduated with a

master in visual studies from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

and completed a residency at the

Amsterdam Rijksakademie. He now

resides in the Boston area where he

investigates vibrational mechanisms and

experimental sound at MIT.20 Bain’s work

focuses on the interaction of acoustics,

architecture, and physical and mental

reactions to infrasonics. He is involved in

“ongoing research investigating the

effects of inherent and induced sonic

events on structures and then people that

inhabit them.” Bain uses both inaudible

20 “Mark Bain: Architect Plus,” last modified 1998, http://v2.nl/archive/people/mark-bain.

sounds normally present in buildings and

other large structures—by amplifying

oscillations or vibrations, he gathers

waveform data and sound to map out the

signature of each building and define a

presence within it.21

At Tuned City Berlin festival in 2008, Bain

created an installation in cooperation with

Amo Branlhuber, BUG. The construction

used an already build basement and

placed a 5-floor building in between two

old typical Berlin fire division walls. The

goal was to turn the whole building into a

sound installation. Bain installed a system

of geodata and seismic sensors in the

infrastructure and concrete to “capture all

mechanic and acoustic micro sensations

21 “Bain, Mark (US/NL), http://www.tunedcity.net/?page_id=29.

happening in and around the building.”

This information created a composition to

be played back to the headphones of

people passing by.22

Bain’s second work showcased at Tuned

City Berlin 2008 was a collaboration

called Tuned Space. Artists across the

sound-art spectrum worked in the

architectural space of the Maria Club

aimed to make their own “sonic

investigations, deconstructions and

provocations” to transport the audience

from a quiet world to the “building

crushing power of subsonic rumblings.”

Bain used subsonic devices to project

sound waves into the foundations of the

Maria Club to “challenge our notions of

22 “BUG,” http://www.tunedcity.net/?page_id=191.

architectural stability and perhaps even

being the walls crashing down upon us.”23

Bain collaborated with the Mutant Data

Orchestra, which performs shows with

rewired digital instruments to “expose the

hidden agents within. Through live circuit

modification of digital answering

machines, cheap digital toys and sound

instruments the performers manipulate the

data pathways.”24

23 “Tuned Space,” last modified January 27, 2008, http://www.tunedcity.net/?page_id=59. 24 “Mutant Data Orchestra,” http://www.simulux.com/mdo.main.html.

HeHe HeHe is collective, non-profit organization

founded in France by Helen Evans and

Heiko Hansen. HeHe reversly engineers

the technological systems that surround

us, including transport design, pollution

monitoring, public advertisement,

meterology, architecture, and public

lighting. Their work focuses on the

spectator and their installations have been

presented all over the world.25

Champs d’ozone, created in 2007, takes

analytical data measuring the quality of air

in the city and transposes it in a “visual

and sound space- time continuum” as a

computer generated cloud above the city,

“reflecting the concentration of nitrogen

dioxide, sulphur dioxide, ozone and

particle dust suspended in the air.” The

interpretation is left to the spectator who

25 AER, “HeHe – Pollstream,” http://greenmuseum.org/c/aer/projects/pollstream/index.htm.

can read the meaning of the cloud code

colors as they please.26

“In Nuage Vert, lasers and a camera

tracking system project color coded

information onto a waste burning

plant/power plant within a local area that

is visible to all residents.” The colors and

levels change at any given time according

to the levels of energy being consumed in

the city of Saint Ouen.27

A constant cloud emitted from the waste

incarceration site at St. Ouen is visible

from the main motorway all the way to the

surrounding neighborhood suburbs in one

of the most urban and densely populated

areas of France. The cloud consists

mostly of water vapor, but raises

awareness and participation amount

consumers in waste production. Although

26 “HeHe,” last modified 2007, http://hehe.org.free.fr/hehe/champsdozone/index.html. 27 AER, “HeHe – Pollstream,” http://greenmuseum.org/c/aer/projects/pollstream/index.htm.

low, recycling quantities are increasing

every year.28

Nils Udo

Born in 1937 in Lauf, Germany, Bavarian

artist Nils Udo has been working

intimately about and with the land since

the 1960’s. Initially

working in Paris

France painting on

traditional

surfaces, Udo

made the switch to

on-site

environmental art

in the early 1970’s.

His work began to

include ephemeral,

on-site installments

using natural

materials native to

his work

environment in Southeast Germany. His

pieces reflect the phenology of this area,

playing on the types of materials that are

thriving during a given season. Nils Udo

works in accordance with his belief of the 28 “HeHe,” http://hehe.org.free.fr/hehe/pollstream/index.html.

concept of “Potential Utopias” that exist

within nature. These are reflections of the

virginity of the natural world we are not in

contact with, and lose their potential upon

direct human intervention.29 He takes

careful precaution when building his

installments to gently alter the landscape

and preserve these utopic characteristics.

Udo’s installation

“The Nest” (1978),

is a play on the

concept of shelter

in the natural

environment. The

piece is

constructed in

Lüneburg Heath,

Germany out of

stones, birches,

grasses, and most

importantly, the

earth itself. Udo

associates a short narrative with the

installation; a testament to sensory

responses he observed while working in

29 greenmuseum.org, "Nils-Udo." Accessed November 16, 2013. http://greenmuseum.org/content/artist_index/artist_id-36__nosplit-z.html.

the setting of what was once a utopic

landscape.

"I smelled the earth, the stones, the freshly struck wood. I built the nest walls high and twisted the soil of the nest. From the height of the edge of the nest I looked down on the forest soil, up into the branch work of the trees and into the sky. I heard the singing of the birds and felt the breath of the wind. In the dawn I began to freeze. The nest was not finished yet. I thought, high above on the edge of the nest squatting: I build myself a house, it sinks silently past the tops of the trees on the forest soil, openly to the cold night sky and nevertheless warmly and softly, deeply into the dark earth dug." 30

30 greenmuseum.org, "The Nest." Last modified 2010. Accessed November 16, 2013. http://greenmuseum.org/content/work_index/img_id-293__prev_size-0__artist_id-36__work_id-66.html.

Set along a trail in the wilderness of

Bavaria near Bad Berleberg, a monolith of

quartz is contained within an invisible

casing outlined by tree trunks. This

sculpture is Nils Udo’s Stone-Age-Man

and is constructed against the natural

grandeur of the forest. The rock itself

symbolizes the time scale in which earth

processes act, which is inconceivable

from the framework of human existence.31

The implication of

home in earth is seen

again with Udo’s piece

Entrance (1993).

Located in another

remote German forest

near Bayern, Entrance

is exactly what the

name implies, a

physical doorway into

the earth. The door is

outlined by a curtain of

hazelnut leaves and the path leads under

the root system of a tree.

31 Udo, Nils. WaldSkulpturenWeg, "Stone-Age-Man." Accessed November 16, 2013. http://www.waldskulpturenweg.com/sculptures/stone-age-man/.

Peter Cusack Peter Cusack is a musician, environmental

recordist, and sound artist based in

London.32 Cusack is a founding member

and research staff member of the London

College of Communication at the

University of the Arts London, and a

founding member and director of the

London Musicians’ Collective. His main

focuses include environmental sounds

and acoustic ecology with projects in

community arts, documentary recordings,

and researching the relationship between

sound and place.33

Cusack’s exploration of sound how it

relates to “our senses of place” provides a

non-traditional form of site-specific art.34

Although many of his works are closely

related to music and the aesthetic

aspects of sounds, he also focuses on

soundscapes related to environmental

issues. Cusack’s soundscapes are formed

from immersive experiences with the

environment and they examine the

32 "Peter Cusack." Gruenrekorder. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. 33 "Peter Cusack." CRISAP. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. 34 "Peter Cusack." Gruenrekorder. 19 Nov. 2013.

disruptions to a particular environment. He

uses the sense of hearing as a unique

medium through which he studies

landscapes and how sounds impact a

person’s experience of place.

“Sounds from dangerous places” is an

ongoing project that looks at

environmental and ecological damage,

including pollution, social injustice,

military, and geopolitical issues. Using

“sonic journalism”, Cusack collects field

recordings as part of documenting places,

issues, and events. 35 To produce his talks,

lectures, radio programs, installations,

publications, and CDs.

In addition to field recordings he collects

photographs, conversations, scientific and

other information from sites like the

Chernobyl exclusion zone, Ukraine and

the Caspian oil fields, Azerbaijan. 36

35 Sounds from Dangerous Places Book and CDs. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. 36 "Peter Cusack." CRISAP. 19 Nov. 2013.

Cusack’s documentation of Chernobyl

includes recorded sounds of work,

electricity, radiometers, as well as

photographs, poems, songs,

conversations, and essays. 37

Peter Cusack’s “The Sound Database” is

an interactive sound project through

Google map.38 Each blue spot is clickable

and plays a unique sound collected from

each location. The sound samples include

sounds collected in urban and rural

environments, and the samples can be

played separately or layered by selecting

multiple spots simultaneously.

37 Sounds from Dangerous Places Book and CDs; Chernobyl. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. 38 "Sound Database Demo." Sound Data Base. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.

Hildegard Westerkamp

Hildegard Westerkamp was born

in Osnabruck, Germany. She

attended Conservatory of Music

in Feiburg, where she studied

flute and piano, and later joined

the World Soundscape Project.39

She composes musical pieces

that deal with the acoustic

environment and soundscapes of

urban or rural areas. She has an

intentional and distinct method, "by

focusing the ears' attention to details both

familiar and foreign in the acoustic

environment, Westerkamp draws attention

to the inner, hidden spaces of the

environment we inhabit"40. Westerkamp

provides a new way to experience, and

specifically, hear place. She uses the

voices, noises, silence, music, media, and

other sources of sounds that are from and

unique to a particular area. In some of her

works she incorporates poetry into the

soundtracks.

39 "Hildegard Westerkamp." BBC-Playlister. n.p. n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013 40 "Biographical Details." Hildegard Westerkamp. n.p. n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013

In "Beneath the Forest Floor" Westerkamp

provides the soundscape of an old growth

forest of western Canada. The entire track

lasts 17 minutes long. Most of the

sounds were recorded on site at the

Carmanah Valley on Vancouver Island.

The track "moves" through the visible

forest, the sounds change as "the trail

meanders in and out of clearings near the

creek"41. One can hear the cry of a raven,

a running river, creaking trees, and much

more.42 Westerkamp states that in

addition to providing the soundtrack to a

41 "Beneath the Forest Floor." Hildegard Westerkamp. n.p. n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013 42 "Hildegard Westerkamp-Beneath the Forest Floor." Green Museum. n.p. n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013

thousand year old forest, she is

"attempting to provide a space in time for

the experience of such peace...a visit will

transmit a very real knowledge of what is

lost if these forests disappear: not only

the trees but also an inner space that they

transmit to us: a sense of balance and

focus, of new energy and life".43

"A Walk Through the City" is an urban

environmental composition based on

Norbert Ruebsaat's poem of the same

name. It takes listeners to Vancouver

B.C.'s Skid Row area. One can hear

traffic, car horns, brakes, a pinball

machine, constructions, human voices,

43 "Beneath the Forest Floor." Hildegard Westerkamp. n.p. n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013

and over it all, Ruebsaat reciting his

poem.44

"Harbor Symphony" was recorded in

1988 in St. John's Newfoundland.

Westerkamp recorded the sounds of over

100 boat horns during the afternoon when

they returned to the harbor. A bird can

also be heard over the sounds of the

horns.45

44 "A Walk Through the City." Hildegard Westerkamp. n.p. n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013 45 "Harbor Symphony." Hildegard Westerkamp. n.p. n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013

Roy Staab Roy Staab is an American artist and

sculptor born, educated, and now based

in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His art and

vision is influenced by the Bauhaus based

art education of structure, form, and

materials. This thinking led to geometric

structures that embrace the land. Staab

started making outdoor installations in

1979 using site-specific materials. He

documents his work through photographs

and his videos, but his goal is to open up

dialogue about ephemeral art in nature.

“Staab often wades knee-deep in water

for hours, using nothing but his hands to

braid and bind stalks together, creating

Zen-like sculptures which may last an

hour, or a couple of weeks, depending on

the forces of nature.”46

Flight’ was created on August 10, 2002

with phragmites in the moors tidal basin of

Provincetown, Massachusetts at the end

of Cape Cod. It stood 10 feet high and 49

wide by 41 feet deep. Staab said, “I first

thought to make art in the water for it to

be isolated and alone, clear to

read…When the water is calm, the

reflection becomes part of the surreal

illusion.47

46 “Roy Staab,” last modified 2010, http://www.greenmuseum.org/content/artist_index/artist_id-68.html. 47 “Works on Water by Roy Staab,” last modified 2010,

http://greenmuseum.org/content/wif_detail_view/img_id-582__disp_size-3__artist_id-68__work_id-144.html.

‘Drakesmound’ was created on June 17,

1991. It is a flat drawing in the sand

created during low tide at Point Reyes,

California. The overlapping ovals were

made from the same size loop of cord. It

was constructed in the beach cove in

order to be seen and photographed from

the cliff above.48

‘Porkka Puttanna’ was created on August

31, 2000 in Borgo Valsugana, Italy. It was

69 feet by 62 feet, made to be level with

the logging road. Bundled saplings were

used to create horizontal suspensions on

the mountainside. The saplings were

tightly bound with wire and held in place

by lintels and loops of nylon rope. It was

made to last a few years and eventually be

dismantled by a groundskeeper.49

48 “Works on Earth by Roy Staab,” last modified 2010, http://greenmuseum.org/content/work_index/img_id-572__prev_size-0__artist_id-68__work_id-143.html. 49 “Works in Air by Roy Staab,” last modified 2010, http://greenmuseum.org/content/work_index/img_id-600__prev_size-0__artist_id-68__work_id-145.html.

Ulrike Arnold Ulrike Arnold is an abstract, site-specific

German artist who currently lives and

works in Düsseldorf, Germany and

Flagstaff, Arizona.50 Arnold began

studying music

and art from

1986 to 1971,

and worked as

a teacher until

she began

studying fine

arts at

Düsseldorf

academy in

1976. Arnold is known for her “regional

art” and what have been called ”visual

histories”. Arnold’s passion for the

environment and the landscapes provide

inspiration for each of her pieces.

Because of her use of minerals for her

paintings, each of Arnold’s works requires

direct interaction with her natural

surroundings. The unique relationship

Arnold forms from this close interaction

sets her apart from her peers.

50 "Ulrike Arnold." Greenmuseum.org. Greenmuseum.org, n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.

Arnold’s methods draw upon kinesthetic

and visual approaches to studying the

locations of her paintings. Her sensory

connection to the land is crucial in her

artistic process of gathering materials

from her environment and transforming

them into

works of art.

“She begins by

studying the

local geology;

walking the

land, touching

the stones,

taking in the

contours,

gaining an overall feel of the space and its

history”.51 After familiarizing herself with

the landscape she chooses samples of

the earth (rocks, clay, soil, etc.), grinds

them into powders, and combines them

with wax or oils to create paint. Using her

hands, she creates abstract shapes and

patterns that resemble the landscapes

she encounters.

Arnold’s widely known series, “Earth

Paintings”, is composed of paintings 51 "Ulrike Arnold." Greenmuseum.org, Web. 17 Nov.

2013.

made in Africa, America, Asia, Australia,

Europe, and South-America.52 The

different colors, textures, and minerals

seen in each painting tell stories about the

place from which they are collected.

Arnold builds a rich foundation in the

historical and cultural origins of each of

her site-specific works. Arnold’s canvas

made in Bisbee, Arizona in 1991, is one

example of her many works.53

Instead of perfectly recreating a specific

image or experience, Arnold creates an

abstract combination of colors, shapes,

and textures to define a sense of place

unique to Bisbee, Arizona. The red,

orange, green, brown, tan, and turquoise

colors in Arnold’s piece directly represent

the historical identity of the landscape and

culture.

Flagstaff, Arizona 1993. Part of Ulrike

Arnold’s Rockart – Art in Nature collection

where she paints directly on rocks using

colors gathered from the surrounding

landscape.54

52 Ulrike Arnold. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2013 53 Ulrike Arnold. Web. 17 Nov. 2013 54 Ulrike Arnold. Web. 17 Nov. 2013

Meterorit und Rheinsand, Tryptichon

2011. Part of Ulrike Arnold’s Sky

Paintings – Space Paintings – Universe

Paintings collection. Using materials from

the Southwest Meteorite Laboratory,

Arnold used particles from five meteorites

found across four continents to create her

palette of colors.55

55 Ulrike Arnold. Web. 17 Nov. 2013

ABOUT THE CURATORS

Manny Garcia is a senior studying Geography focusing on Geographic Infor-mation Sciences with minors in Spanish and Computer Information Technology at the Robert D. Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon. He is doing his thesis on the e�ects of water-intensive industries on water stress in Canada’s prairie regions. Garcia was born in 1992 in Walnut Creek, California. When he was three his family moved to Vienna, Virginia and then moved again when he was six to Port-land, Oregon, where both his parents still reside. In his spare time Manny likes to play videogames on his computer, listen to music and blog on tumblr. His blog can be found at manzorz.tumblr.com.

Sophie Thackary is a senior in Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon. She will graduate in the spring of 2014 with a BA in Spanish and minors in Art History and Political Science. Her particular areas of interest are children’s welfare and the criminal justice system. Growing up in the Northwest, Sophie has had a lifelong love of the outdoors, both for its beauty and its potential for explora-tion and recreation. She also enjoys both creating and appreciating art and has a passion for bike riding. Her blog exploring issues of art and ecology can be found at sofafactory.tumblr.com.

Marion Rosas was born in Morgantown, West Virginia in 1993 and moved to Sacramento, California with her family when she was three years old. She currently attends her junior year at the University of Oregon campus where she is involved in the pre-medical program, the architecture department, and the Clarks Honors College. She enjoys studying relationships between complex systems—most speci�cally those involving people as she perceives each person to be his or her own intricate puzzle. She fosters a love for art, foreign language, and family. In her spare time, she enjoys painting, swimming, people-watching, and dissecting the kind of philosophical �lms that leave the mind racing. Visit her ecological art blog at rosasmrn.tumblr.com.

Makenzie Shepherd is a senior in the Robert D. Clark Honors College, majoring in Environmental Studies through the University of Oregon. She was born in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey and lived there her entire life, until moving to Eugene, Oregon for college. Makenzie's interests include bike riding, hiking, travel-ing, concerts and music festivals, and playing basketball and lacrosse. She is currently doing on her honors thesis on the bene�ts of outdoor education and outdoor schools in Oregon.

Artist Links

Trevor Paglen — http://www.paglen.com/

Hamish Fulton — http://www.hamish-fulton.com/

Joseph Beuys — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Beuys

Radical Cartography — http://www.radicalcartography.net/

Matthew Moore — http://www.urbanplough.com/

Robert Smithson — http://www.robertsmithson.com/

Walter de Maria — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_De_Maria

Agnes Denes — http://www.agnesdenesstudio.com/

The Center for Land Use Interpretation — http://www.clui.org/

The exhibition Stuffed Animals: Exploring Ecologi-

cal Values through Animal-Themed Art is somewhat

unique in its very banality. Art has incorporated

animals since almost the dawn of time: in fact, the

earliest known painting by Homo sapiens is (argu-

ably) located at either the Cave of El Castillo in Spain,

which includes engravings of deer; or Chauvet Cave

in France, which displays paintings of animals num-

bering in the hundreds. Animal art is nothing new,

therefore, and artists continue to depict animals

in their works to this very day. Strangely, there are

disproportionately few art shows that dedicate their

entire range of displays to depicting animals, and even

fewer that approach the subject from a sympathetic

perspective; that is, most expositions of animal art fail

to take the subjectivity of the animals into account.

Stuffed Animals hopes to address arts lack of deep

engagement with issues of animal welfare and to

explore humanity’s relationship with animals through

the lens of ecology.

The title of the exhibition, Stuffed Animals, is meant

to raise many of the issues that the exhibit hopes to

address. The title is loaded in its connotations, but

in a way that is meant to lead to discussion or de-

bate rather than provide a solution to an ecological

problem. To many people, the title Stuffed Animals

suggests cute children’s playthings like teddy bears or

other plush animals; this emphasizes the dichotomy

between “cute” animals that those rejected as “ugly”

or “gross,” and the problems that arise from such sub-

jective categorization. Another important association

pertaining to stuffed animals as playthings is that chil-

dren have control over these animals and can create

their own stories for them, just as adults have control

over animals in real life, and can cage them, general-

ize them, or destroy their habitats with little or no

repercussions; stuffed animal toys are also manufac-

tured, just as people “manufacture” their own ideas

about the nature of certain creatures. The title sug-

gests dead animals on display, “stuffed” and mounted

for people to view in the museum space. This raises

issues around the nature of our interaction with the

animals on exhibition; are we truly interacting with

animals in the exhibit, or just dead shells? What

makes an animal an animal? Are even the live animals

on exhibit in a sense “stuffed”? Additionally, the term

“stuffed” is a synonym for loaded; are our conceptions

of these animals loaded? Is the exhibit itself loaded in

its construction? The title Stuffed Animals begins an

important debate even before the viewer has entered

the exhibition space.

The debate around animals in art is wide-ranging

and contentious, and many writers and artists have

engaged with the powerful, problematic nature of

including live animals in art. Especially prevalent is the

subjectivity of the animals in question. Over the years,

introduction : haunted art“The creature gazes into openness with all / its eyes. But our eyes are / as if they were reversed, and surround it, / everywhere, like barriers against its free passage.”

– Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

artists concerned with ecological issues have taken

many approaches to dealing with this issue, raising

legitimate questions about the treatment of animals

not only in the “real world” but within the realm of

art itself.

The philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari

claim in their book What is Philosophy? that “art is

continually haunted by the animal.” The claim rings

true upon multiple levels. Many animals have died for

the sake of art over the it’s long history. Arguably art

has grossly misrepresented the animal over the years,

shaping and molding creatures until their artistic

significance has become more symbolic than physical.

Animals, then, haunt art more through their absence

than their presence: art has made them into shades,

undermining their subjective, varied experiences.

In point thirteen of his work Some Notes towards a

Manifesto for Artists Working with or about the Living

World, the artist Mark Dion states that “animals are

individuals, and not carbon copy mechanistic entities.

They have cognitive abilities and flexible behavior,

which is not to suggest that they have distinctly hu-

man characteristics.” Dion’s statement addresses the

trend towards anthropomorphism and the projection

of human values; while he does not state that this

trend should be completely dropped, stating, “artists

may find the rich tradition of anthropomorphism too

powerful a tool to surrender,” Dion does suggest that

the subjectivity of animals ought to be recognized. He

is not alone in taking this position; many other artists

concerned with ecological issues also find anthro-

pomorphism and the lack of recognition of animal

subjectivity in art disquieting.

As Dion suggests, however, even ecologically-minded

artists frequently use the symbolic power animals

bring to art to their own advantage. The catalogue for

the art exhibition Radical Nature claims that Joseph

Beuys, one of the founding fathers of the ecological

movement within art, used a coyote in his perfor-

mance piece I Like America and America Likes Me

because he “saw the debasement of the indigenous

animals as symbolic of the maltreatment of the conti-

nent at the hands of white men.” The piece makes use

of the coyote as symbolic of America itself in order to

convey a powerful message about the poor ecologi-

cal treatment of the Americas by European settlers.

The piece is problematic both because it places the

animal in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable context,

and because it treats the coyote as a symbol, which

devalues its subjective experience. Nevertheless, the

piece remains one of the most influential, important,

and powerful works of ecological art ever created.

In more recent years there seems to have been a

movement towards making careful recognition of the

subjectivity of animals within the realm of animal-

themed art. The Radical Nature catalogue states that

the ecological art group Ant Farm’s project Dolphin

Embassy “was designed to promote interspecies com-

munication in order to establish a shared vision for

a harmonious co-evolution… this architectural proj-

ect invites us to reconsider communication with the

natural world as necessarily two-way.” The Ant Farm

project posits a dialogue with animals themselves,

where dolphins have their own voice and their own

say in how they are represented within the public

sphere. Though such a dialogue is clearly impossible

in reality, Ant Farm’s conceptual “embassy” raises an

extremely important debate around the subjective ex-

perience of animals and the obligation humans have

to address the rights of animals as well as their own

self-interests.

Another problem relating to animal subjectivity is

the organization of animals into various categories by

humans, under which some animals are considered

“useful” or “pretty,” while others are termed “pests”

or “gross.” In conversation with Mark Dion, the artist

Alexis Rockman once stated that “symbolically mar-

ginalized species are considered ruthless and out of

control. But this perception is really symptomatic of

our inability to control nature. I admire their power

and adaptability.” In this statement and in much of his

art, Rockman calls into question human categoriza-

tion of animals, suggesting that these categories stem

from our own prejudices more than any qualities in-

herent to the animals in question. Rockman suggests

that some of the qualities that we despise in certain

creatures can also be viewed as positive attributes,

implying that human opinions of these animals are

less important than the subjective experience of the

animals themselves.

Other artists and philosophers go even further in

questioning the values we ascribe to animals and our

ability to understand animals’ experiences. In the

essay “What is It Like to be a Bat,” Thomas Nagel, an

American philosopher, says: “I want to know what it

is like for a bat to be a bat. Yet if I try to imagine this,

I am restricted to the resources of my own imagina-

tion.” Nagel’s essay concerns itself deeply with the

problematic aspects of thinking that humans can

understand the experience of other creatures even on

the most basic level. Though we might think we can

undergo an experience similar to a bat’s by closing

our eyes or hanging upside down, Nagel suggests,

this only speaks to how humans might try to behave

in a similar manner to a bat and not get at the actual

experience of the bat at all. To Nagel, the experience

of every creature, human or otherwise, is completely

subjective.

The philosopher Jacques Derrida also believes that

the subjective experience of the animal is completely

different than the human experience and thus incom-

prehensible to humanity. In L’Animal que donc je suis,

Derrida claims: “The animal is there before me, there

next to me, there in front of me – I who am (follow-

ing) after it.… It surrounds me. And from the vantage

of this being-there-before-me it can allow itself to be

looked at, no doubt, but also… it can look at me. It has

point of view regarding me.” Here, Derrida arguably

goes even further than Nagel does in his essay; while

discussing the idea of nakedness, he implies that in

humanity’s constructions of concepts like nudity,

there is no gaining of self-awareness, but rather that

the “gains” made in our supposed understanding in

fact leads to weakness and misunderstanding. In a

sense, the animal’s position outside of humanity’s

social constructs lends it a certain clarity of vision into

which humans will never have insight.

By now, it is probably clear that an exhibition focused

upon animals in art will unavoidably have problematic

aspects. However, such an exhibit can still hold artis-

tic value. In his book Green Light: Toward an Art of

Evolution, the artist and writer George Gessert states

that “most of the animal imagery in art functions less

as an exit from anthropocentrism than as an expres-

sion of human fear, desolation and failure. The less we

know animals, the more readily we project onto them

our sentimentality, violence, and desires – which only

brings us back to ourselves.” Gessert argues con-

vincingly that art created by humans is necessarily

anthropocentric; that is, that even in pieces depict-

ing animals the focus remains upon human beings.

This brings us to one of the fundamental problems of

an animal-themed exhibition – what exactly are we

engaging with in such a display? The pieces in Stuffed

Animals are not created by animals, but rather by

humans; therefore, it can be persuasively argued the

show reflects the subjective experience of the hu-

man artists rather than the subjective experience of

the animals on display. But this does not necessarily

mean that Stuffed Animals is valueless in addressing

the issues it engages with, even pertaining to mat-

ters of subjectivity. Instead, the exhibit ought to raise

thoughts about the impossibility of understanding

these issues from a non-human perspective and lead

to dialogue about the approach we as humans take to

animal-centric issues. In its problematic aspects, the

exhibition takes on a new power, as its contentious

elements only speak to the complicated nature of the

issues it addresses.

It is clear that the subjectivity of animals is a vital

problem that needs to be addressed through art or

other means. What is less clear, however, is whether

or not there are solutions to the problems that sur-

round this issue of animal subjectivity. However, this

lack of solutions need not be a negative feature of

the dialogue surrounding animals. Art, after all, is not

about providing solutions, but rather asking the right

questions, as well as generating the right discussions.

Stuffed Animals is meant to further the discussions

surrounding our interactions with animals rather than

answer its viewers’ questions.

T H E E X H I B I T I O N

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum, located upon the

University of Oregon campus in the Pacific Northwest,

provides a unique and appropriate location for ad-

dressing issues pertaining to animals in relation to

ecology. The campus itself is an arboretum, and blurs

the apparent dichotomy between nature and culture;

as a location dedicated to both the preservation of

trees and the instruction of students, the University

of Oregon campus cannot be located solely in the

realm of either, but rather incorporates features of

both “institutions” within its grounds. With its frontier

back-history as one of the most recently European-

settled places in the Americas, with Lewis and Clark

not reaching Oregon’s coast until the year 1805; its

peoples’ historical tradition of both embracing and

struggling against the land, as Oregonian author Ken

Kesey exemplifies in lines like “Ocean, Ocean, Ocean,

I’ll beat you in the end. I’ll break you this time. I’ll go

through with my heels at your ribbed sea sand. . .”

from Kesey’s Garage Sale; and the controversy and

reliance upon sources of commerce like the timber

industry, Oregon is a territory uniquely positioned

to deal with ecological issues. Additionally, a large

percentage of people from the Northwest are pas-

sionately dedicated to ecological matters, and the

area is home not only to a large assemblage of in-

dividuals devoted to environmental issues, but also

many skilled artists engaged with animals and ecology

who have immersed themselves in a culture rich with

ecological possibility, and organizations ardently dedi-

cated to the general welfare of the environment and

the well-being of animals in particular.

While Stuffed Animals is ostensibly presented in

the same way as any other art exhibition you might

find in a museum like the Jordan Schnitzer, in real-

ity the exhibit is unrealized: it exists only on paper,

and will never actually be displayed in the real world.

However, the abstract nature of the show lends its

own advantages to the project of formulating the

exhibition. As curators of an abstract show, we are

able to include works in our exhibit where ethical

issues might come into play if the piece were ever

to manifest itself physically. For instance, Xu Bing’s

exhibit “Panda Zoo” is troublesome in its treatment

of animals, as the exhibit includes multiple live pigs

painted to resemble pandas. But as our exhibition

only physically exists upon the printed page, we can

include Xu Bing’s piece to instigate discussion around

the aesthetic values humans place upon animals,

without having to bother ourselves unduly with wor-

rying about the ethical issues surrounding the work.

Also, the non-material nature of “Stuffed Animals”

allows us as curators to include pieces that might be

difficult or impossible to actually include in an exhibit

within the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Banksy’s

work provides a relatively accessible and popular, yet

nonetheless valuable, glimpse into issues surround-

ing aesthetics and habitat, but under normal exhibi-

tion circumstances is difficult to present in a museum

space. Our incorporeal exhibit allows us to propose

that Banksy’s work be presented in a way that not

only places it in an exhibition context but also does

not significantly detract from the significance of his

work by removing it from any physical context that

might lend his art meaning.

~~~~~~~~

Stuffed Animals aims to create a necessary and valu-

able discussion around the subject of animals and

ecology. To do so, the exhibit forms itself around the

following overarching questions.

• What are animals in their relation to the aes-

thetic values of humans?

Stuffed Animals raises questions pertaining to the aes-

thetic values humans place upon animals. Humanity

shapes the nature of animals to fit their own attitudes

and predispositions. This is an inescapable reality

that should nonetheless be recognized. While Stuffed

Animals acknowledges the inescapability of human

biases, it does not dismiss the idea that the prob-

lematic aspects of these biases can be mitigated. Nor

does Stuffed Animals imply that human biases should

be wholly rejected at all; rather, the exhibit asks the

viewer to examine their own aesthetic biases as they

pertain to animals and come to their own conclusions.

Stuffed Animals indicates that the subjective experi-

ence of animals can and should be recognized and

celebrated, while at the same time testing the subjec-

tive viewpoints of its human audience.

• What are animals in their relation to modern

technology?

Stuffed Animals deals with the rapid evolution of

technology in its relationship to animals and the

future that the present trajectory of this evolution

may be leading us towards. The exhibit gives rise to

inquiries surrounding animals’ representations in the

world of technology, how technology may guide our

own views about animals, the impact that technol-

ogy has upon animals today, and how this impact may

shape our future. While Stuffed Animals questions the

notion that science provides the answers to ecological

issues, it embraces the positive effect that scientific

technology can have upon animals. The exhibit gener-

ates questions about its role in our interactions with

non-human creatures, raising both positive and nega-

tive issues surrounding the impact upon our relation-

ship with animals.

• What are animals in their relation to habitats

shared with humans?

While it is clear that humans have had a deep and

lasting impact upon animal habitats, especially in rela-

tion to urbanization, Stuffed Animals tests the instinc-

tive reaction that all human intervention has a nega-

tive impact upon the natural world and animal life in

particular. While Stuffed Animals opposes the idea

that human intervention is always necessary in find-

ing solutions to environmental problems, the exhibi-

tion also explores the positive possibilities that such

interventions might offer in shaping animal habitats.

Stuffed Animals deals with locations where humans

and animals come together, examining the complex

relationships that come about as a result of human-

animal interaction.

~~~~~~~~In Stuffed Animals, we have attempted to create

a space in which the viewer can interact with the

issues raised above while remaining relatively free

from manipulation. Our sincere wish is that visitors

to this exhibition might engage with these questions

meaningfully. We hope that everyone will enjoy the

works displayed, but our foremost goal is to gener-

ate thoughtful discussion about our daily interactions

with animals, allowing all of us to revisit our exchang-

es with non-human life in a fresh and stimulating way.

We wish you the best of luck in your explorations.

DONATIONS ARE WELCOME

—The Curators

Curator Biographies

Zoë Livelybrooks is a senior, English major and French

minor at the University of Oregon. She is in the process of

crafting a creative writing honors thesis focusing on how

authors use setting to reveal characters’ thoughts and feel-

ings. Approaching the exhibit from a non-art background,

she has been intrigued to learn that much artwork is more

concerned with posing valuable questions and inspiring de-

bate than providing answers. While she has been to other

art exhibits at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and at

other museums and galleries in her travels, curation has

provided her with new insight into how the arrangement

of pieces in a space may affect their interpretation, and the

challenges of selecting works that, when viewed together,

illuminate many different facets of an issue. As a collabora-

tor in this exhibition, she created the artist biographies for

Alexis Rockman, Fritz Haeg and Naeemeh Naeemaei, as

well as providing a basic format for the artist biographies,

formatting the final document and contributing to group

discussion on layout and themes.

Zane Mowery is a senior in the Department of English at

the University of Oregon. Zane has curated many museum

exhibitions before, but all of them were even more imagi-

nary than this one. Zane has attended many exhibitions

at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in the past, and is

happy to finally be able to pretend that he is curating his

own show there. Zane lives on Planet Earth and therefore

is naturally concerned with ecological issues. Interests

include long walks on the beach, the letter “P” and pre-

Nazi German literature. He provided the introduction

and significant moral support (by saying nice things in a

passive-aggressive voice). In all seriousness, Zane learned

a lot about both art and ecology in creating this exhibition,

and hopes that his work within this catalogue reflects this

newfound knowledge (because his biography certainly

doesn’t).

Ian Murphy is a sophomore at the University of Oregon,

and is part of the Clark Honors College. He is currently

considering a career in journalism due to his enjoyment of

stories and writing. His past experience with environmen-

tal issues is mostly limited to personal interest and several

classes that dealt mostly with environmental science. The

role of art as it pertains to ecology is a new and refreshing

addition to consider. For a non-artist it has been at times

confusing and frustrating to discuss the potential problems

and limitations that artists’ are faced with their work. How-

ever, through the course of the past term and in curating

this exhibit, he’s gained a greater respect for the dilemmas

in presenting these issues. In this catalogue Ian focuses on

artists Xu Bing, Banksy and Mark Dion, as well as general

editing.

Aubrey West is in progress for a Bachelors of Arts degree

in International Studies with a concentration in Interna-

tional Business and Western Europe and a minor in Busi-

ness Administration from the University of Oregon and

Robert D. Clark Honors College. She is currently working

on an honors thesis on the topic of sustainable fashion

and works part time as a Guest Relations Coordinator at

Gervais Salon and Day Spa in Eugene, Oregon. “Stuffed

Animals” is her first time curating a museum exhibition,

though she has attended a few. Her favorite being the

eccentric Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern in London and

Pompidou in Paris. In this catalogue, She focused on the

artist profiles for Natalie Jeremijenko and Ozzy & Suzi, and

created the exhibition layout as well as collaborating with

the group on organization and planning logistics.

Exhibition Layout

The exhibition plan for the layout of “Stuffed Animals”

takes up most of the Barker Gallery of the Jordan

Schnitzer Museum of Art. One possible route for the show

is to begin at the South Western hall with a collection of

paintings by Alexis Rockwell, Naeemeh Naeemaei, and

Ozzy & Suzi. Moving into the largest area of the gallery

marks a transition into 3-Dimensional art. This includes

Natalie Jeremijenko’s Amphibious Architecture and a

goose from the project Ooz. Mark Dion’s Sleeping Bear

has a large presence in its own room. Fritz Haeg’s Animal

Estate is an eye-catching and large piece that holds the

center of the exhibition. Mark Dion’s Library for the Birds

of Antwerp and Survival of The Cutest sit at the Northern

end of the hall. The entire North Western wing is reserved

for Xu Bing’s Panda Zoo, which involves live animals and

so warrants a large amount of space that will be closed

off and fenced at the doors to protect both people and

the animals and to respect the animals’ needs. In addition

to the Barker Gallery, “Stuffed Animals” will utilize the

projection room on the first floor to show Natalie Jeremi-

jenko’s video documentation of Feral Robot Dogs. After

viewing this, visitors have the opportunity to take one of

the dogs to the campus quad, under supervision, and test

for pollutants. There was also a surprise artist, Banksy,

who brought his work Sirens of the Lambs to sit outside

the front of the museum.

Fritz Haeg is an artist and architect based out of

Los Angeles who travels frequently, creating installations

in cities, museums and gardens throughout the world.

While he received a degree in architecture, his work has

expanded to include a wide variety of media, including

plant life and textiles. He also has a long history of facilitat-

ing others’ creative work, and his L.A. home has been the

site of both the Sundown Salon and the Sundown School-

house, in which locals could gather, share and teach about

creative practices and ideas that matter to them. The Los

Angeles Times Magazine describes Haeg as “an intensely

social being whose process is fueled by interaction,” and

many of his projects are designed to foster interaction, as

well. Through the creation of prototype gardens around

the world, his project Edible Estates encourages home-

owners in cities to convert their lawns into gardens. Haeg

describes the effect of these gardens, saying, “Taking that

piece of land that previously was isolating one place to the

next and actually using it as a space that starts to connect

people back in, because if you’re growing food in your

front lawn, you’re out there all the time, so you’re seeing

people out there, and it changes the whole dynamic of the

street” (NPR).

In the Exhibition: Animal Estates 10.0: Eugene, Oregon

(2013)

Haeg says “all of my work is about home and community”

(Los Angeles Times Magazine). His project Animal Estates

moves beyond the human aspect of home and community

to explore animal living spaces in cities, and the urban

animal and human community (Los Angeles Times Maga-

zine). Animal Estates has undergone nine incarnations

in different cities internationally, each version centering

on the construction and exhibition of a prototype animal

dwelling that can house one or multiple animals (referred

to as “clients”) that have a history in the local area. The

prototype is designed with the assistance of specialists on

these animals. We propose that, like previous incarnations

of the project, the Eugene edition of Animal Estates will

include a prototype animal dwelling that will be installed in

the gallery space. Like the Animal Estates project exhibited

in Portland, Oregon, our installation will include a camping

tent in which the gallery audience can find related re-

sources, including a booklet that discusses the project, the

animal clients, and their dwellings, as well as images of the

animals, locals’ accounts of their interactions with these

animals, and information about how people can create

animal estates on their own property.

We view Haeg’s work as a valuable addition to this exhibi-

tion because of its highly interactive nature, as well as the

compelling stance it takes towards animals by referring to

them as “clients.” This terminology implies that humans

and animals are peers, and that we can act as service pro-

viders for animals, facilitating their independent existence

in our midst, instead of rejecting, ignoring or taming them.

For reflection: What questions does the juxtaposition of

the camping tent and the animal dwelling raise about what

home and habitat means for humanity? What questions

does it raise for animals?

Artist Profiles

Alexis Rockman is a painter based out of Man-

hattan whose work examines many ecological issues,

including biodiversity, biotechnology, extinction, animals

in urban environments and climate change. Animals and

landscapes typically dominate Rockman’s works, although

he occasionally portrays humans. As he draws on both mu-

seum displays and science fiction films for inspiration, the

forms his animals and landscapes take vary, ranging from

realistic portrayals of ants in modern Guyana to fantastical

mutated and compound creatures living in biospheres in

space (Lawrence). However, his more futuristic pieces are

not just flights of fancy. Instead, many of Rockman’s works

are informed by his conversations with climatologists,

biologists and other scientists. Rockman suggests that this

relationship may be beneficial to the scientists as well as to

himself, saying, “They have to use the language of science;

I can use the language of metaphor and I can be very blunt

and subjective [...] So I can say things that they can’t really

get away with in public” (Corbett).

In the Exhibition: Pet Store (2004), The Farm (2000) are

both works from Rockman’s Wonderful World exhibition,

which he describes as being “about the more immediate

concerns of biotechnology and its impact on the his-

tory and futures of species and what a species boundary

means, why it’s so disturbing and revolutionary” (green-

peace.org). Pet Store features a display of bizarre crea-

tures. Living animals, ranging from the mythological to the

disturbingly modified (such as a legless dog with handles

that appears to function as a purse), sit side-by-side on tiny

perches while robotic cats, dogs, and other four-legged

gizmos scurry up and down a central metal spiral.

The Farm focuses primarily on the development of agricul-

tural animals. Against a background of a field of soybeans,

Rockman features a cow, pig and rooster in ancestral,

modern and futuristic states. In their futuristic forms, the

chicken sports extra wings, the cow extra teats, and the

pig rolls of extra fat. Additional details in the scene include

a hairless rat growing a human ear on its back, organs

painted on the side of a pig and an image of a dog on a

blue ribbon.

Rockman, in depicting the future, posits some often un-

settling results of the ecological values our society holds

today. Pet Store examines the manipulative control hu-

mans have over animals in light of new advances in tech-

nology, and how far that manipulation might go to satisfy

our sense of aesthetics. His placement of live and robotic

animals next to each other suggests a blurring of the

distinction between the two, which raises questions about

the values that accompany this binary between organism

and machine, and the possible consequences of breaking

it down.

The Farm, while it also gestures toward the manipulation

of animals for aesthetic purposes, invites discussion over

the technological alteration of animals for consumption,

convenience and medical usage.

For reflection: Rockman imagines futures for both pets

and agricultural animals. What might the different ways

in which these animals are manipulated reflect about

our relationships with them, and our ecological values in

general?

left, Pet Store 2004below, The Farm, 2000

Naeemeh Naeemaei is an artist based in Teh-

ran, Iran. She works in both sculpture, which she majored

in at the Tehran Art University, and painting. The two paint-

ings featured in this show were drawn from Dreams Before

Extinction, her first solo exhibition. As the title suggests,

this series of paintings focuses on endangered animals

(as well as the extinct Caspian Tiger) in Iran. Naeemaei

features herself in her artwork, linking herself through

painting with members of these endangered species as a

family member, friend, ally, and in some instances shar-

ing veins and even bodies. Many of her paintings draw

on the Shi’a faith and Iranian traditions to show the bond

between Naeemaei and the animals, as well as the value

these animals hold for the artist. Her inspiration also has

a highly personal aspect, which she describes, saying, “I

use my dreams, wishes, memorabilia and legends, plus

information about the species, to extend my imagination”

(Naeemaei 6).

In the Exhibition: Imperial Eagle (2011), Silence of the

Leopards (2012)

Imperial Eagle depicts the artist curled up on the back of

a flying eagle as it rises above a valley obscured by clouds.

In her description of the piece, Naeemaei addresses an art

critic who supposes her “general ideas were taken from

the symbolic values of each animal,” answering “No! I

don’t care. I am happy if the symbols match my animals,

but to me all animals, even the seemingly weak ones, are

as real and powerful as any other in the real world” (12).

Silence of the Leopards features a standoff on a hilltop be-

tween Naeemaei, flanked by leopards, and a sheep ranch-

er, armed, standing in front of his sheep. A stripe of empty

land divides the two parties. It is the right to this land, the

artist explains, that is the source of the tension. The sheep,

she writes, “don’t eat only plants. They eat lands” and in

the event of a battle, she is “afraid the penetrative power

of the rancher’s gun would be stronger than the sharpness

of the leopard’s teeth” (32). As a “shepherd” of the leop-

ards, Naeemaei places herself between the leopard and

the threat posed by the rancher.

In the context of this exhibition, Naeemaei provides a

perspective on human-animal relationships that is uniquely

and deeply personal. It is this personal aspect, created by

her own presence in her paintings, that refuses to allow

the animals pictured to be reduced to symbols. In this

sense, her work prompts viewers to look past an aesthetic

interpretation of the connection between animals and

humans to find an emotional bond. Additionally, Silence

of the Leopards suggests the need to consider non-human

benefit when determining the use of land, and explores

the privileging of domestic animals over wild animals be-

cause of the benefit they represent for humans. Together,

her two featured pieces present very different opportu-

nities for the roles humans and animals can play in their re-

lationships with each other. While Silence of the Leopards

positions humans as shepherds, with the power (or at least

the desire) to defend their animal flocks, in Imperial Eagle

it is the animal that is in the position of guide and protec-

tor.

For reflection: What (if any) is the importance of emotion

in the human/animal relationship, and in our understand-

ing and treatment of ecological issues as a whole?

Imperial Eagle, 2011

Silence of the Leopards 2012

Olly & Suzi paint together on shared canvasses while

amidst wild animals that are also the subject matter. They

say of their work, “our art-making process is concerned

with a collaborative, mutual response to nature at its most

primitive and wild” (OllyandSuzi.com). They are inspired by

Native American folklore in which “animals were regarded

as brothers,” Williams says. “It’s a theme that runs through

the cultures of many indigenous peoples.” (Trivedi). They

use mostly natural materials such as mud, ochre, ber-

ries, and dung in order to use nature to portray it. Their

main aim is to raise awareness for endangered animals by

getting close to them in their natural environments and

presenting the resulting paintings to an audience. The

animals are often encouraged to interact with the artists

and paintings of themselves in order to be inclusive of the

animal and not reduce it completely to a symbol. For this

purpose they also try to include track marks, prints, or bits

of the animal in the works. The final result “can be viewed

as evidence to an event, a form of primal investigation; a

physical performance of the senses” (OllyandSuzi.com).

The artists seek to enable and offer endangered animals

the chance to document their existence, before their dis-

appearance.

In the Exhibition: Lapland Bears, Lapland Moose

Lapland Bears and Lapland Moose are two photographs

of the paintings done of a bear and moose respectively in

their natural habitat, the Lapland forest. The deciduous,

snow covered trees in the background allow the viewer to

imagine the animals in their environments easily. It also

shows a strong contrast between the real and the painted,

which exposes the difficulty of accurately representing a

live being in all its emotional and physical complexities.

The photograph of the shark does not have a title, but

is an excerpt from the BBC film Wild Art: Ozzy and Suzi

Paint Predators.” The image is of a shark biting the image

of itself completed by Ozzy and Suzi in the water with the

shark. This is a compelling addition to the exhibition be-

cause it shows the animal as an active participant in their

artistic process. It is also worth noting that this exposes the

contrast between human and animal where humans seek

to represent and symbolize life to provide and understand

meaning, and animals are not concerned with art, to the

best of our knowledge.

For reflection: Olly and Suzi’s works address the human-

animal relationship in the artists’ interactions with wild

animals, but also raise questions about the human invasion

of and impact on natural habitats. Is it ethical for artists

to use and collaborate with animals that cannot expressly

give consent?

Xu Bing was born in 1955, in Chongqing, China. Both

his parents worked at Peking University, and he grew up in

Beijing. As a result he was exposed to the Cultural Revolu-

tion for most of his childhood. He showed an interest and

talent in calligraphy growing up, and in 1977 he became

part of the printmaking department of the Central Acad-

emy of Fine Arts in Beijing (CAFA). Then in 1990 he moved

to the United States at the invitation of the University of

Wisconsin, and only returned to China in 2008 to become

a vice president of CAFA (Ashmolean, 2011). Much of

his work was inspired by the state’s strict regulations on

speech he witnessed growing up. Exploring and critiquing

the usage of written language became a prevalent theme

in his art. In an interview Bing stated that: “no matter what

outer form my works take, they are all linked by a com-

mon thread, which is to construct some kind of obstacle to

people’s habitual ways of thinking--what I call the ‘cogni-

tive structures’ of the mind” (Harper, 2007).

In the Exhibition: Panda Zoo (1998)

Bing identifies nature’s influence, saying, “I feel that any-

one with a conscience is an environmentalist – they will

have their own thoughts and concerns about the global

environment. In fact, artists and art derive from a deep

connection to the environment and nature” (dmovies.net,

2008). While the majority of his work only tangentially

discusses environmental issues, there are several excep-

tions. The one being presented is called Panda Zoo; in it

Bing disguises several Hampshire pigs with panda masks.

They are surrounded by typical Chinese symbols such as

bamboo or a traditional landscape painting. The project

was previously shown in Wood Street Galleries, PA. For our

exhibit we initially contemplated only presenting existing

documentation. In this way we hoped to circumvent the

questionable morals of using live animals as symbols while

still allowing viewers to consider the issues of valuing crea-

tures based on aesthetics or utility. The degree to which it

raises questions is a significant benefit. Given that the pigs

themselves are domesticated and unlikely to suffer signifi-

cant distress in the presence of a human audience, we’ve

resolved to proceed with including the original animals

with the understanding that such a move would not be ap-

propriate in an actual exhibit.

We consider Bing’s work valuable for its ability to force

reevaluation of how animals are seen in society. His work

with Panda Zoo has particular relevance in America due

to pig’s reputation as ugly or dirty despite their usage.

This is particularly effective when they are compared to

a creature like a panda, which is valued strictly based on

aesthetic merit. Beyond that, the piece also raises ques-

tions regarding the morality of viewing animals based on

their utility. We find that the piece has a clear, easy to

understand message, which, coupled with the disarmingly

surreal imagery, allows a wider audience to appreciate it.

For Reflection: While we’ve determined that the piece

can fit into a conceptual exhibit, how (if at all) would the

domesticity of an animal change the ethics of presenting it

an actual exhibit?

Panda Zoo, 1998

Banksy is the pseudonym for one of the most popu-

lar street artists in the world, particularly in the UK. He

first became active in 1993 in Bristol, and by 2001 was

commonly known. The bulk of his work is detailed graffiti

sprayed throughout major cities. Their mockingly satiri-

cal tone, coupled with the illegality of how the work is

presented, has made him controversial. His reputation is

not helped by the fact that he insists on remaining anony-

mous, and refusing face-to-face interviews (Collins, The

New Yorker) Despite this, examples of Banksy’s work have

cropped up in museums and been sold in auctions. Some

of his more notable work includes nine graffiti images

sprayed onto Israel’s West Bank Barrier condemning it for

“essentially turning Palestine into the world’s largest open

prison,” replacing 500 albums of Paris Hilton’s Paris debut

with doctored copies (Urbanist), and for smuggling a fake

cave painting into a museum where it was later discovered

and surprisingly accepted (BBC, 2005).

While the majority of his work remains anti-authoritarian

graffiti sprayed around cities, several of his pieces have

featured animals painted on walls around New York. While

perhaps not his intention, they provide provoking imag-

ery. In East New York, he spray-painted a beaver gnawing

down a street sign. And in Bronx Zoo (at Yankee Stadium)

a jaguar lounges on a wall by a street, easily visible to the

cars moving past. Most recently Banksy drove a slaughter-

house truck full of stuffed animals around the meatpacking

district of New York, calling it Sirens of the Lambs (New

York Daily News). The stuffed animals stuck their heads

between the slats so that they were easily visible. Inside

they were moved by puppeteers, with audio of squeals and

cries playing.

In the Exhibition: Sirens of the Lambs (2013)

We had not initially considered including any of Banksy’s

work in our exhibit. However, several days into the pro-

cess of planning our layout we noticed that someone had

secretly included space on the lawn of the Jordan Schnitzer

Museum for Banksy’s Sirens of the Lambs. After consid-

eration, we decided to incorporate the work as we felt it

relevant to the themes we were attempting to discuss. It

calls on viewers to consider the ways in which livestock are

viewed and treated. Similar to Mark Dion’s Survival of the

Cutest, viewers are confronted with proof of their aes-

thetic valuing. Packed inside an enclosed space, and with

the knowledge that they are being driven away, viewers

are left to imagine what comes next. Despite its seemingly

straightforward nature, we feel that the disquieting emo-

tions the piece raises serve as a good mindset for viewers

to enter the exhibit proper.

Sirens of the Lambs, 2013

Natalie Jeremijenko harmonizes art, ecology,

and technology in what she calls “systems design” (Wein-

er). She is an artist, professor, and environmental activist,

along with being a mother of three. She comes from a

background in biochemistry, physics, neuroscience and

precision engineering. Her work involves complex tech-

nological manipulations with aesthetically pleasing end

result, and always with a mission to improve the viewers’

understanding of their relationship with nature, art, and

technology. She also runs an environmental health clinic,

“where anyone can make an appointment to discuss ways

to remedy health hazards like airborne pollutants and

storm-water runoff” (Weiner). Jeremijenko is successful at

reaching a wide audience and creating a platform for ques-

tions to be answered through interaction with the art.

In the Exhibition: Amphibious Architecture, Feral Robot

Dogs, OOZ

Amphibious Architecture “is a network of floating interac-

tive buoys housing a range of sensors below water and an

array of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) above water” (Organic

Connections). A second part of the project is the ability

for the audience to send text messages to the fish below,

asking them questions about their environment, and to

have them receive responses that are quite comical, yet

informative. This work facilitates a questioning of the

human-animal relationship and our shared environment.

The audience was also given a healthy snack that could

be given to the fish or eaten by people. Jeremijenko says

of this, “It’s a very visceral way of demonstrating that we

share the same natural resources, we eat the same stuff,”

she once explained. “They’re not inhabiting a different

world” (Weiner).

Feral Robot Dogs is an ongoing project that is becom-

ing global due to its successful interaction with people’s

understanding of the pollution in their environments. The

robot dogs are made of toy dogs that are fairly cheap, and

then remodeled with the proper technology to make them

more mobile and able to detect pollutants in the ground

or air. Jeremijenko states, ‘’What the dogs provide is an

opportunity for displaying some evidence that certainly,

experts can interpret, but local community members

can interpret, as well” (Glassman). This accessibility and

practicality makes the project seem less like art, and so

its presentation in “Stuffed Animals” will try to mimic this

interactivity. There will be a film shown about the useful-

ness of the dogs in the projection room on the first floor,

and then there will be dogs available to take around the

campus quad to test for pollutants on the University of

Oregon campus.

OOZ is a play on the word and concept of a zoo, where

animals are trapped and kept for entertainment. Jeremi-

jenko’s robotic geese in this project interact with other, live

geese and the viewer to provide insight into the natural

politics of animal life. Humans take much from the animal

world and, “Although animal models are the basis of the

biological sciences and contemporary medical knowledge,

it is the use of animals as social and political models that

Jeremijenko makes explicit in the OOZ project” (Perron).

For Reflection: Each of Jeremijenko’s works in “Stuffed Ani-

mals” addresses the issues of the animal-human relation-

ship and their shared environment. How can human better

communicate with, and thus learn from, animals to create

a more sustainable shared environment?

Mark Dion was born in 1961, in New Bedford, Mas-

sachusetts. He currently lives in New York but operates

worldwide and is known for his interdisciplinary methods,

appropriating scientific practices in order to question and

propel dialogue. In his words, “The job of the artist… is

to go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge

perception and convention.” In particular he is concerned

with the origins of environmental policy and, determin-

ing whether they came to be through objective rationale

or subjective opinion (Art21 on PBS). The New York Times

describes Dion as, “…one of those curious characters the

world produces every so often; men and women who

combine making things with intervening in the institutions

that show them - in museums and schools, in cities and far-

flung sites, disrupting the flow and structure of our picture

of the world just enough to make us wonder why we give it

that structure and flow in the first place” (Lewis, 2012).

In the Exhibition: Sleeping Bear, Survival of the Cutest, The

Library for the Birds of Antwerp

Sleeping Bear (2012) features a sleeping bear atop a bed of

discarded technology and household appliances that Dion

collected. The piece was incorporated as part of the Na-

tional Tourists Routes in Norway, with several installments

hidden in the landscape for visitors to discover. In order to

access the work visitors had to make their way through a

tunnel and into the “den” (Meier, 2012). For the purpose

of this exhibit, we will simulate the cramped den by situat-

ing the piece in its own small room.

Survival of the Cutest (1990) is part of a larger installation

called Wheelbarrows of Progress. There were four wheel-

barrows in total, featuring objects relevant to ecological

discussion. Cutest contained a collection of stuffed animals.

It comments on the tendency to focus conservation efforts

on the species considered to be pleasing, often at the ex-

pense of the animals that are not as valued. (Sheehy). Due

to their similar messages we will situate the piece close to

Xu Bing’s Panda Zoo.

In The Library for the Birds of Antwerp (1993) Dion placed

a dead tree in a tub and hung an array of ornithology

related objects, including scientific books, birdcages and

portraits of famous scientists. The tub and surrounding

walls featured representations of exotic birds. The work

examines the scientific procedure in expanding the under-

standing Antwerp’s local birds (Freize).

All of Dion’s work displays a careful consideration of hu-

man contribution to the extinction of species. Sleeping

Bear is a stark representation of the effect pollution has on

habitats. The isolated den that should have been safe from

intrusion is instead filled with junk, leaving the animal with

no more places to retreat to. Survival of the Cutest un-

derstands and exploits the viewer’s reaction to endearing

animals to emphasize the questionable practice of priori-

tizing one creature over the other. The Library for the Birds,

while less condemning of human involvement than the

other works, nonetheless objectively critiques the journey

to understanding. Among the paraphernalia, one of the

most conspicuous is the axe, hinting at the costs involved

in the process. Mark Dion’s measured and empathetic ap-

proach to these issues makes him a valued addition to the

exhibit.

Sleeping Bear, 2012

Library for the Birds of Antwerp,1993

Survival of the Cutest, 1990

Works CitedGlassman , Mark. “Are Toxins astir? Release The Hounds.”New York Times [New York ] 26 JUN 2003, Web. 4 Dec. 2013. “Natalie Jeremijenko: Environmental art science.” Organic Connections. 2013: Web. 4 Dec. 2013. Perron, Jacques. “Natalie Jeremijenko: OOZ.” Fondation Langlois. La Fondation de Daniel Langlois, Web. 4 Dec 2013. Trivedi, Bijal P. “Painter-Explorers Turn Animals Into Artists.” National Geographic News. (2003): Web. 4 Dec. 2013. Weiner, Jonah. “The Artist Who Talks With The Fishes.”New York Times [New York ] 28 JUN 2013, Web. 4 Dec. 2013.

Fritz Haegfritzhaeg.com. Fritz Haeg, 2008. Web. 1 Dec. 2013.

“Everyday Radical.” latimesmagazine.com. n.p. August 2010. Web. 1 Dec. 2013.

Haeg, Fritz. “Architect Creates Estates for Wild Animals.” Interviewed by Jennifer Sharpe. npr.org. n.p. 4 March 2008. Web. 1 Dec. 2013

Alexis Rockman“Alexis Rockman: Our True Nature: An artist’s view of the future” greenpeace.org. Greenpeace, 6 May, 2004. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.

Lawrence, Sidney. “An Illustrative Career Depicting Dystopias.” wsj.com. The Wall Street Journal, 25 October 2011. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.

Corbett, Rachel. “Painter Alexis Rockman on His Dire Eco-Dystopian Visions.” artspace.com. n.p. 10 Sept. 2013. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.

Naeemeh NaeemaeiNaeemeh, Naeemaei. Dreams Before Extinction. Eds. Paul Semonin and Viggo Mortensen. Santa Monica: Perceval Press, 2013. Print.

Xu Binghttp://www.ashmolean.org/exhibitions/xubing/about/http://www.artistsrespond.org/artists/xu/http://www.xubing.com/index.phphttp://www.woodstreetgalleries.org/images/press_img/cultural_animal/trib.pdfhttp://jameelcentre.ashmolean.org/collection/6980/10293/10372

Banksyhttp://weburbanist.com/2007/07/19/banksy-paradox-unofficial-guide-to-the-worlds-most-infamous-urban-gue-rilla-street-artist/http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/sep/18/arts.artsnewshttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/14/070514fa_fact_collins?currentPage=allhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4563751.stmhttp://www.highsnobiety.com/2013/10/11/banksy-sirens-of-the-lambs/

Mark Dionhttps://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/dion/

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E2D7143FF932A35757C0A9649D8B63&ref=markdionhttp://blogs.artinfo.com/artintheair/2012/12/19/mark-dions-sleeping-bear-installation-hibernates-in-the-nor-wegian-wilderness/http://www.quodlibetica.com/taxidermy-and-extinction-considering-the-work-of-mark-dion/

INTRODUCTION:Gessert, George. Green Light: Toward an Art of Evolution. Boston: MIT Press, 2010. Print.

Derrida, Jacques. “The animal that therefore I am.” Marie-Louise Mallet, ed. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008. Print.

Baker, Steve. “Haunted by the Animal.” Tate Magazine, Sept. 2001. Print.

Dion, Mark. “Some Notes towards a Manifesto for Artists Working with or about the Living World.” The Greenhouse Effect, Serpentine Gallery. London, 2000. Print.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. What is Philosophy? London: Verso, 1994. Print.

Francesco Manacorda, curator. Radical Nature: Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969-2009. Barbican Art Gallery. London: Koenig Books, 2009. Print.

Nagel, Thomas. “What is It Like to be a Bat?” The Philosophical Review, Oct. 1974. Print.

Dion, Mark, and Alexis Rockman. “In Conversation.” Journal of Contemporary Art, Spring/Summer 1991. Print.

EXCHAEXCHAEXCHA � � �

Collaborations  

with   Nature  

Uninvited  

NGENGENGE � � �

T H E J O R D A N S C H N I T Z E R M U S E U M O F A R T A N D T H E C L A R K H O N O R S C O L L E G E

proudly present

1 4 3 0 J o h n s o n L a n e , E u g e n e O R 9 7 4 0 3 • t e l e p h o n e : 5 4 1 - 3 4 6 - 3 0 2 7 • w w w. j s m a . u o r e g o n . e d u / e x h i b i t i o n s / e x c h a n g e

Age of Ecology

We are living in the Age of Ecology. Donald Worster, in his book, Nature’s Economy: A

History of Ecological Ideas explains this period as a space wherein humankind has ac-

knowledged and declared an interdependent relationship with nature. Unlike earlier

seekers of interdependence, however, the Age of Ecology does not view this relationship

with nature as the salvation of human society. Instead, ecology today focuses on improv-

ing mankind’s relationship with nature.

Therefore, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, in conjunction with the Clark Honors

College, is pleased to present Exchange: Uninvited Collaborations with Nature, an exhibit that

explores humankind’s interdependence with nature and questions whether this relation-

ship is actually improving.

With every interdependent relationship, some sort of exchange must occur. After all, a

relationship constitutes of giving and receiving. The work exhibited features “materials”

commonly exchanged between humans and nature. First is monetary value, which in-

cludes commodification of resources and ownership rights over nature. Second are genetic

exchanges and manipulations carried out by humans upon nature. Third, the most imma-

terial of the exchanges, is humankind’s intellectual and moral exchanges with nature, in

the form of spiritual relationships and the cultural perspectives and values that humans

place on nature.

With these exchanges in mind, the exhibit brings up three questions that analyze the

human-nature relationship:

1. How do values shape the way we interact with nature?

Culture undoubtedly influences human’s values and these values in turn dictate

our actions in relation to nature and all parts of life. What aspects of nature do

we view as more or less important, and why? What patterns, hypocrisies, and

cultural reflections are evident in these views?J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

1

2. How do humans benefit from exchanges with nature?

The relationship between humans and nature has often been one of exploitation.

What benefits can we reap from a mutually beneficial relationship with the

earth? Is it possible to coexist with the other members of our environment and

still maintain a prosperous, consumptive way of life?

3. How does nature benefit from exchanges with humans?

Although perhaps the hardest to answer, this question truly evaluates the rela-

tionship humankind has set up with nature. Does reciprocity actually exist in the

human-nature relationship? Or is the relationship dangerously one-sided?

Think about how these questions relate to your own life. Worster emphasized how the

Age of Ecology belongs to the lay mind. Humankind can no longer distance itself from

this relationship. We can no longer just leave the culture of these exchanges to institutions,

corporations, or authorities. We must take a look at these forced, uninvited collaborations,

and begin mending this relationship with nature to be one of reciprocity and mutual

benefit through the small decisions of everyday life.

The artists exhibited today are passionate about sharing their perceptions of nature, cul-

ture, and relationship. Some seek direct intervention to natural problems such as Nina

Katchadourian’s mended spiderwebs and Amy Balkin’s Public Smog. Others seek a mental

intervention such as Tacita Dean’s chalkboard paintings and Andrea Polli’s Particle Falls.

Still others highlight the human-nature collaboration in their approach to ecological issues

such as Mel Chin’s Revival Field and Kathryn Miller’s Area 52.

Exchange is not only about experiencing the artwork, however, because viewing is not the

same as hearing or doing. Worster believes that the “task seen as more pressing today [in

the Age of Ecology] is to break down the dualism that isolates man from the rest of na-

ture.” To aid in breaking that dualism, outreach projects in conjunction with the exhibit

are scheduled every week to encourage participation in nature as well as dialogue. Those

unable to visit the show are encouraged to peruse through this catalogue and brainstorm

and carry out your own ideas of improving your interactions with nature.

A final thought: “survival in nature demands participation in the complex network of or-

ganisms: a spirit of joining rather signing off” (Worster). It is our hope that Exchange: Un-

invited Collaborations with Nature as a whole will provide you a safe space to learn, analyze,

and critique this spirit of joining and participating with, not only nature, but our world.

Reference

Worster, Donald. Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological

Ideas. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print.J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

2

Schedule of EventsExchange: Uninvited Collaborations with NatureExhibit runs from May 1 - May 31, 2014 in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art’s Barker Gallery

Opening Event: Butte BombingApril 28, 2014 | 5 PM | Spencer’s Butte

As an associated outreach program of the Exchange exhibit, the Museum will sponsor a re-seeding event in partnership with artist Kathryn Miller. The event will take place at Spencer’s Butte, a peak just South of Eugene that is one of the area’s most popular systems of hiking trails. Because the Butte offers panoramic views of Eugene, Springfield, and the lower Willamette Valley, it endures almost year-round recreational impact. According to a 2002 impact study conducted by a team from the University of Oregon’s Environmental Studies Department, the Butte’s native flora suffers from the high amount of recreational use (Mital, et al.). Any hiker can attest that even today vegetation is sparse at the Butte’s peak, and the lack of defined hiking trails at the top mean that what vegetation there is is often trampled on.

Kathryn Miller is known for her project of seed bombing, guerrilla re-seeding projects where she throws dirt clumps filled with native seeds into sparsely vegetated and environmentally abused areas. For this project, she will work offi-cially with the Jordan Schnitzer Museum and the City of Eugene as well as members of the community to distribute “seed-bombs” containing native seeds in heavily impacted areas of Spencer’s Butte. At the seed-bombing event, mem-bers of the community will be given seed-bombs assembled by Miller and volunteers and will be encouraged to wan-der and distribute them off the main path in areas that have been heavily impacted.

Uninvited Collaborations with NatureLecture and Discussion by Nina Katchadourian

May 5, 2014 | 5 PM | University of Oregon, PLC 180

Nina Katchadourian will speak about creating her piece for this exhibit. Learn about her personal intervention in natural problems such as broken tree branches and torn spiderwebs as engage in open dialogue about what this means for us in everyday life.

Artist’s Talk & Virtual TourThe Global International Commons by Amy Balkin

May 12, 2014 | 5 PM | University of Oregon, PLC 180

Amy Balkin will lead audiences in an interactive virtual tour and lecture about the social, economic, and political implications of the global international commons. She will explore the responsibilities and obsta-cles of commons of the land (This is the Public Domain) and air (Public Smog). Amy hopes to capture a di-verse audience at this event so participants can contribute their personal experiences to help frame the issues of environmental justice Amy will address.

Inside the OutsideDiscussion by Andrea Polli and Colin Ives

May 26, 2014 | 5 PM | University of Oregon, PLC 180

Andrea Polli and Colin Ives, both professors and professional artists, will lead a discussion on the role of ecological art in facilitating and influencing society’s relationship with nature. What does the field of art contribute to the discourse of ecology? What role does art play in our relationship with nature?

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

3

Featured Artists

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

4

Andrea PolliAndrea Polli is a media artist based at the University of

New Mexico (UNM) whose works employ science and

technology to convey humans’ relationship with the en-

vironment. Polli is the head of the Art and Ecology de-

partment at UNM and has curated several exhibitions

related to media, technology, and the environment. Her

works include Cloud Car, a car fitted with water mist

emitters that make the vehicle appear to be clouded in

steam or smoke. This is meant to visualize the emissions

created by our vehicles and raise awareness for the ef-

fects our transportation choices have on the environment

(Polli).

Another of Polli’s notable projects is Particle Falls, a series

of computer-generated waterfalls that are projected onto

the sides of buildings in San Jose and Philadelphia. Near

the waterfall, a special sensor that measures emissions

feeds computer information about the pollutants in the

air. The computer will project more and more orange

interference of the flowing blue of the waterfall as emis-

sions increase, and will correlate the amount interference

with the amount of pollution in the air.

This exhibition will display an iteration of the Particle

Falls piece. The waterfall will be projected just inside the

museum entrance so that it will be visible as visitors pur-

chase admittance and enter the exhibition. The waterfall

will display emission levels from the parking lot nearest

to the Jordan Schnitzer Museum, across the street from

Prince Lucien Campbell Hall on the UO campus. Ac-

companying the waterfall image loop will be a video feed

of the parking lot, showing which arrivals and depar-

tures correlate with the spikes and decreases in interfer-

ence in the waterfall. Both the waterfall and the video

feed will be delayed by five minutes, so that visitors have

the opportunity to see the effects of their own arrival.

Sources

Polli, Andrea. “Cloud Car.” andreapolli.com <http://vimeo.com/2553521>.

Polli, Andrea, and Varga, Chuck. “Particle Falls” OSIJ 2010.

<http://01sj.org/2010/artworks/particle-falls/>.

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

5

Suzanne LeeSuzanne Lee is a London-based fash-

ion designer who creates garments

out of living cultures. Cultures of

yeast and water, such as those found

in kombucha form a film-like solid

substance in Bio-Couture that Lee

forms into material thick and strong

enough to mimic fabric or leather.

This material is used to create de-

signer quality clothing, which are

exhibited as examples of future

methods of clothing development.

The Exchange exhibition will feature

several of Lee’s garments because of

the unique interactions that they

create between humans and other

living organisms. Rarely do other

organisms play such a large role in

the human aesthetic as in Suzanne

Lee’s bio-garments. This personal

exchange raises interesting questions

about what different types of ethical

treatment non-sentient life should

receive.

Sources

“What We Do” Biocouture.<http://biocouture.co.uk/what-we-do/>.

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

6

Tacita Dean

Tacita Dean, born in Canterbury, England in 1965, is rec-

ognized as a world renowned artist. Since her time at the

Falmouth School of Art in England she has won multiple

awards and prizes.  Despite this heavy academic training

Dean’s work avoids academic approaches and remains

extremely original, often revolving around the theme of

searching.  Furthermore she often plays with the theme

of struggle, “which explains the recurrence of the sea as a

major protagonist in her work” (Tate).  

In her work the Roaring Forties this element of struggle

and the sea can also be encountered.  The Roaring Forties

is, “a name given to a zone in the southern Atlantic, be-

tween 40° and 50° latitude, which is noted for its gale-

force winds” (Tate).   The work allows the reader to en-

counter the struggle of the elements at work with the sea

and form their own narrative around the changing scen-

ery from one chalkboard to the next. Tacita Dean’s work

provides a more indirect and narrative look into collabo-

rations with nature.  Often it provides a forum for the

audience to view their relationship with the changing

and struggling environmental elements around them by

enveloping them in the evolution of her story.

Sources“Tacita Dean: Artist Biography." Tate. Web.

<http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/tacita-dean-2675>.

"Tacita Dean." Frith Street Gallery. 2013. Web.<http://www.frithstreetgallery.com/artists/bio/tacita_dean>.

"Tacita Dean." Marian Goodman Gallery. 2013. Web.<http://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/tacita-dean/>.

"Tacita Dean: Roaring Forties: Seven Boards in Seven Days." Tate. Web.<http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dean-the-roaring-forties-seven-boards-in-seven-days-t07613/text-summary>.

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

7

Matthew Moore

Matthew Moore is interested in the relationships between

the urban and rural, and the effects of suburban devel-

opment on the American farm. He is a fourth generation

farmer, who produces not only agricultural products, but

also site-specific earthworks on and around his family’s

land. His projects take natural items and apply them in

urban development projects that are commonplace in

peoples’ everyday activities. For example, he uses a

wheat field in Moore Estates to mimic the sprawl of a

suburban neighborhood. In Floor Plan, he uses dried

seeds to illustrate the floor plan of a house.

His work does not necessarily exhibit teamwork between

humans and nature but instead emphasizes the relation-

ship between the two by crossing the boundaries that

separate them. In Moore’s depiction of the relationship

between humans and nature, he takes the role of a facili-

tator which freely transforms nature, thereby mimicking

society’s “consumer models that make us disobedient to

our relationship with land and time.”  His transformation

of nature may seem like a subjugation of nature, but it is

a subjugation that causes humans to rethink their own

perceptions of nature. There is a domination, which re-

sults in the shattering

of dominant schools

of thought regarding

nature.

In some cases, the dominant schools of thought may not

necessarily be a conscious one. Thus, his work seeks to

bring the unconscious to consciousness. This is epito-

mized in other projects such as Billboards of the Landscape,

which reminds Arizona residents about  the limited

availability of natural resources and encourages them to

live within those limitations. Furthermore, his work on

video time lapses of food grown in the supermarket

brings to consciousness the process that goes into grow-

ing the food we so easily pick up on the grocery shelf.

Sources "Matthew Moore: Artist

Statement." Urban Plough. Web.<http://www.urbanplou

gh.com/info/artist-statment/>.

"Matthew Moore: Biography." Urban Plough. Web.<http://www.urbanplough.co

m/info/biography/>.

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

8

Mel ChinMel Chin, born in 1951 in Houston, Texas, remains an

artist whose work is not easily classified as it often

crosses many disciplines such as alchemy, botany, and

ecology. Often his work is centered around the most un-

likely of settings such as toxic landfills, destroyed homes,

and anywhere he feels could provide a provocative and

influential setting.  Chin aims to create a forum for dis-

cussion and ideas stating that, “The survival of my own

ideas may not be as important as a condition I might

create for others’ ideas to be realized” (PBS).

One of his most well know works is Revival Field in

which he utilized plants, specifically hyperaccumulators,

to remove toxic metals from the soil in the Pig’s Eye

Landfill in St. Paul Minnesota.  The project not only

brought to light the concept of ‘Green Remediation’ but

also proved that despite the harsh conditions a variety of

the Thlaspi plant was able to accumulate significant

amounts of toxic metals from the soil.  This project not

only demonstrates a uninvited collaboration between

nature and humans as Mel Chin forced the growth of

these plants on the landfill, but also demonstrates the

ability of nature to continue to collaborate with itself in

the most unlikely of places.

Sources

"Bio." Mel Chin. Web. <http://melchin.org/oeuvre/mel-chin>.

"Mel Chin." PBS. Web. <http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/mel-chin>.

"Revival Field." Mel Chin. Web. <http://melchin.org/oeuvre/revival-field>.

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

9

Jun Takita

Jun Takita is a France-based artist born in Tokyo. His

preferred mediums are sculpture gardens, through which

he investigates the relationship between man and nature

in the new technological age by working with teams of

scientists from multiple plant Observatories and Univer-

sities across Europe.  Jardin Bioluminescence not only illus-

trates the exchange of genetic material Takita implements

to artificially illuminate the moss, but also questions, in

doing so, who reaps the benefits of the exchange. As Ges-

sert posits, allowing moss to become bioluminescent

“could mean biological opportunities for the moss, new

places for it to live. What gardeners will gain will be the

pleasure of the plant’s presence. In a strictly Darwinian

sense, the moss may benefit most” (Gessert 140). How-

ever, by exhibiting this piece inside the museum space,

the curators ask viewers to probe their understanding of

exchange deeper, to analyze the significance of place both

for the viewer’s relationship to the art and the benefits

both the viewers  and the moss receive.  

Sources

Gessert, George. Green Light: Toward an Art of Evolution.

“Anthropocentrism and Genetic Art.” 137-142.

"Jardin Bioluminescence (2002)." Web log post. Jun

Takita Project (fraçais). N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

10

Kathryn Miller

For Kathryn Miller “collaborations can make the work

richer and more informed because it brings in new per-

spectives.” Her interdisciplinary work not only encour-

ages collaboration between people but among research-

ers as well. Miller studied Biology as an undergraduate,

later received a Masters in Fine Arts, and has taught art

at Pitzer College in Claremont, California since 1993.

This exhibition features three of Miller’s work which

emphasize various levels of collaboration. Seed Bombing

reflects a direct human intervention into the natural

landscape. These seed bombs, made out of compressed

soil and seeds, are thrown into “areas that are degraded,

physically abused or in need of vegetation.” Some may

question the impact of such a project, even if the seed

bombs contained plants that are native to that particular

area.

In another project, Area 52, filters remove pollutants from

urban water run-off. Metal filters remove solid waste

such as plastic bags and water bottles, limestone blocks

de-acidify and neutralize toxic water, and plants and

organisms finally take care of the water on a microscopic

level before returning to the Los Angeles River. This pro-

ject essentially reflects an ecological collaboration

wherein man-made and natural components work to-

gether to achieve a common goal.

In the final project featured in this exhibition, Desert

Lawn, Miller criticizes the subjugation of nature purely

for human benefit in the urban landscape. Through pho-

tographs of medical professionals growing grass in the

desert, Miller questions the relationship Southern Cali-

fornia residents have developed with nature. Despite

their environment being a desert, Southern Californians

insist on well-manicured lawns. Lawns are perhaps one

of the more common natural elements of a suburban or

urban landscape, but at what costs will that have on the

environment to be maintained?Sources

"Artist Statement." Kathryn Miller. Web.

<http://www.kathrynamiller.com/statement.html>."Earthly Concerns." University of San Francisco . Web.

<http://www.usfca.edu/uploadedFiles/Destinations/Libra

ry/thacher/archive/Earthly%20Concerns.pdf>.

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

11

Nina Katchadourian

At the heart of Nina’s work is an exploration of the hu-

man desire for things to be meaningful. Often featuring

plant life and animals in her works, Nina questions the

human relationship to nature and the values people im-

pose on it. Her 1998 project Uninvited Collaborations with

Nature, which serves as the principal inspiration for this

show, presents a variety of situations in which thoughtful

human interventions encourage even more thoughtful

consideration.

The Mended Spiderweb series, complete with free spider-

web advertising and a Do-It-Yourself Spiderweb Repair Kit,

comments on the unintended impacts humans make in

larger, everyday settings. Additionally, in Renovated

Mushroom and Transplant, Nina emphasizes the conse-

quences of anthropocentric impositions on nature.

Lastly, Stop Using Us questions the commodification of

nature and the ethical implications of using animals

(caterpillars, in this case) for artwork. Though based in

Brooklyn, NY, Nina grew up in California and spent

summers in a Finnish archipelago, where she still visits

and works frequently.SourcesKatchadourian, Nina. Web. 05 Dec. 2013.

<http://www.ninakatchadourian.com/uninvitedcollaborations/index.php>.Somerset, Guy. "Nina Katchadourian Interview." New Zealand Listener 08 Apr. 2011,

Arts and Culture sec.: 1-6. Print.

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

12

Amy Balkin

By creating almost exclusively

community “project” works that

confront and reveal the problems

of climate change and environ-

mental injustice, Balkin’s art fully

synthesizes the cultural and environmental awareness cam-

paigns newly born in the USA in the ‘70s (Brett Bloom, 22). Her

work primarily focuses on understanding the social implications

humans have on the natural landscape, through two methods: 1)

after identifying institutions whose structures may perpetuate

social and environmental injustice, she inserts herself to work

within them, spearheading legal battles that in reality are futile;

and 2) encouraging interdisciplinary research within her works

and diversity of thought within the public dialogue her exhibi-

tion and lectures create.

This is the Public Domain represents the legal struggle of turning

2.64 acres of private property in Tehachapi, California into a

permanent global commons, collectively owned by the global

public. The site, purchased in

2003, is “landlocked,” as Balkin

describes it, and requires hiking

through multiple private lands,

resulting “questionable access.”

Like some of her other works,

Public Domain showcases the

arbitrariness of property in that

it cuts across land without re-

gard to existing landscape.

This theme is continued in Public Smog, Balkin’s creation of a

pollution-free park in the atmosphere, conceived through her

decision to purchase carbon trading credits and withhold them

from the market. Although she keeps the public updated on the

daily changing size and shape of the park (dependent on the

amount of atmospheric emission allowances countries have), her

most recent campaign strives to protect this park by enlisting it

as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

However, because the atmosphere is a global property, and not

owned nationally, UNESCO has refused her petitions. In follow-

ing with Public Smog’s website broadcast that “Public Smog is no

substitute for direct action,” this exhibition will showcase some

of the 50,000 signed postcards members of the public sent to the

German Minister of the Environment in support of his national

adoption of the park for it to meet UNESCO’s

requirements.  

Sources

Bloom, Brett. With Love From Haha: Essays and Notes on a Collective Art Practice. “Allu-

vial Deposits.” 20-29. Print.

Balkin, Amy. "Public Smog." Public Smog. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.

Balkin, Amy. “This is the Public Domain.” This is the Public Domain. N.p., n.d. Web.

25 Nov. 2013.

"Public Smog: What, How, and For Whom?" Royal College of Art, London: 2006. Web.

01 Dec. 2013.

<http://www.cca.rca.ac.uk/publicsmog/documents/Publication_PublicSmog.pdf>.

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

13

Exhibit Map

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

14

List of Exhibits1. Nina Katchadourian

A. Mended Spiderweb seriesB. Mend your own Spiderweb kitC. Renovated mushroomD. TransplantE. Stop Using Us

2. Jun TakitaA. Jardin Bioluminscence

3. Kathryn MillerA. Area 52

1. Scale model of plant filtration systemB. Desert LawnC. Seed bombing Project

1. Physical seed bombs on display4. Suzanne Lee

A. Bio Couture1. Clothing on mannequins2. Pictures of the clothing

5. Mel ChinA. Revival Field

1. Scale model of the field 2. Photos of the data collected3. Live examples of the plants used in the work

6. Amy BalkinA. Public Smog

1. Framed postcardsB. This is the Public DomainC. Photos and iPad interactives of Balkin’s lectures

7. Tacita DeanA. The Roaring 40s: Seven Chalkboards in Seven Days

8. Matthew Moore A. Billboards of the LandscapeB. Sprawl

1. 3 floor plans. Glass case2. Navigate through maze of estates.

C. Lifecycles1. Time lapse videos

9. Andrea PolliA. Particle Falls

1. Sensors outside in museum parking lot2. Camera live stream of parking lot3. 10 min delay with “light show” inside entrance4. Camera & lights in Entrance & Exhibit

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

15

Meet the Curators

Megan Gleason

Environmental StudiesJunior“Because society does not look to art for the answers to climate collapse, art has limitless potential for its environmental imagination to solve problems. Art has the ability to transform and reenchant politics with emotions, which at once both excites the public and communicates political issues more easily to them.”

Elliot Goodrich

Planning, Public Policy, and ManagementJunior“The similarities and differences between our artistic representations of the world and nature itself say a lot about what is most culturally important, which natural dynamics compel us the most, and how we live and view our interac-tions with nature.”

Jeana LobdellBusiness AdministrationSenior

“As the bridge, art maintains the ability to provoke discussion and thought among its audiences as it works to create a social responsibility for these ecologi-cal issues that otherwise could not be fully or accurately addressed.”

Anna Karvina Pidong

AccountingJunior

“Art at its core challenges norms and boundaries making it a natural space for addressing and exploring issues of ecology, an area that desperately needs to break through societal norms.”

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

16

Behind the Scenes Exchanges between the Curators

MG: Regarding the sentence [from the Curatorial Statement], “Human interactions with nature are often one sided, often leaving the earth scarred and drained of life…” I agree with the feeling of that sentence, but I think what you’re saying there is that humans only think of nature through human perspectives.

EG: I don’t think that. I don’t know if the way we think is one sided, but I think our actions are.

MG: Okay, because I think that calling interactions one sided, to me, makes it feel like you only either think of nature or you only either think of humans. But those impacts are really related.

EG: What I meant is when we interact with nature, most of the time we get the better deal of the interaction.

MG: Yeah, and I felt that. And I agree with you 100% on that, but, uhmm..

EG: Do you just not agree with the way it’s worded?

MG: Yeah, maybe.

JL: Let’s say something like “[humans] lack knowledge of the consequences,”

[General Agreement]

MG: Yeah, that’s more what I’m thinking of I think. When I think of impacts, I think of how long lasting they are on nature. But I don’t think it’s right to say “It’s important to think of the long lasting impacts” because that language doesn’t seem right in this curatorial statement, but…

EG: But I’m not saying that.

MG: I know. That’s what I’m saying I guess.

[Laughter]

EG: I’m just having trouble understanding what you’re saying.

MG: Yeah, I know, because I’m having trouble under-standing what I’m saying…

[Laughter]

MG: When you say, “their interactions are often one sided,” I understand that to mean “humans see that they want nature and they just take it.”

[Murmurs of agreement]

MG: I guess this question is just asking us to think from the one-sided human side. Like, [encouraging us to] think like a human. But I think it’s weird.

AP: So instead of just having that question be from the human perspective, you want the question to be an-swered, and to be thought of, through the nature per-spective?

MG: I don’t want [the question] to be worded so people answer “I’m gonna think like a human now” and then in the next question think “I’m gonna think like nature now.” I guess I want…

EG: You want to kind of integrate the last two questions more?

MG: Yeah.

EG: Okay. I feel like… I feel like if we want to have them be two questions we [need to keep them the way they are] otherwise we’d just have one question that asks, “how do we benefit from each other?”

AP: So how would we word it so that [the question] applies to both human and nature?

AP: [Revisiting Megan’s comment] I can see what you’re trying to say. When I was thinking of a way to describe the question, I was thinking of how it’s easy to forget that relationship with nature, because we don’t see it as a relationship sometimes.

[Murmurs of agreement]

AP: It’s more of a, “Nature belongs to me so I can do whatever I want with it” kind of thing, so I think that’s where you’re coming from, right? That sense of exploi-tation. That we as humans don’t really see it as a rela-tionship, as [we see] it as an exploitation.

EG: Exactly. That’s what I was getting at.

MG: And these questions... I do like these last two ques-tions because they are more “math-y” [quantitative].

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

17

Because they’re less focused on the relationship. They urge, “Alright, humans, think of [interactions with na-ture] as a cost benefit thing” you know? In a way I to-tally like the way the questions are structured because then the last question says, “Alright, now think of this from the nature perspective, which is equally as impor-tant to think about.”

MG: I don’t know. Maybe this is just my opinion, but I think that when humans have an exchange with nature they think it is a one-time thing. “Today I will take all the trees in a forest.” But for nature, that exchange [and its impacts] is not a one-time thing, it lasts a lot longer.

EG: I’m still not sure what you’re getting at in terms of changing our statement…

MG: I don’t know what I’m getting at.

[Laughs]

AP: What if we delete that sentence that says, “Their interactions are often one sided…”

EG: Yeah, that’s what I was kind of thinking too. I think that might fix it, honestly.

[Laughs all around]

AP: Is that better?

[General Agreement]

EG: Do you think we got some good discussion points from that we can dialoguize?

[Laughs]

MG: For sure.

EG: I definitely think you should… [laughs] Do you like my verbage? [laughs] I think you should put in the part where we’re all talking and trying to express our thoughts and all we can come up with is, “I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” “I don’t know either!”

[Laughs]

EG: I think that’s very representative of this course.

[Laughs]

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

18

Thank you for visiting Exchange.

Come again soon.

J S M A a n d C H C! E x c h a n g e

19

addendum

Art at its core challenges norms and boundaries making it a natural space for addressing and exploring issues of ecology, an area that desperately needs to break through societal norms.

Anna Karvina Pidong

Art exists predominately in thought-space; in its physical manifestations, it serves primarily as a mode of conveyance. Art is deeply personal, the same work tak-ing vastly different forms in the minds of each member of its audience. Art has no “off” switch; existing in the mind, it operates as a function of daily consciousness.

Zane Mowery

Do artistic efforts continue in vain if there is no response from the community? In my desire to see art trigger uproar, I realized the uproar that it is. Art is a reflec-tion of ourselves, of our human thoughts and our human touch. And so, although I am caught by the unpredictability of our nature—whether or not art can change our hearts—I maintain hope because art represents the progress that we have already made.

Marion Rosas

I view art as the bridging gap between our de-sensitized and often corporate society and the reality of the issues we face and ecological damage we have caused.

Jeana Lobdell

Science and art work in a way analogous to the brain when applied to a single discipline. They are conceptually opposed, with the arts providing an inherently more subjective and aesthetically intriguing approach to environmental issues than the sciences. However, they have the ability to coalesce and compliment certain aspects of each other to control public discourse, similar to how the left and right brain control the body.

Wade Martin

I think it is art’s unique capacity to unsettle us that gives it an important role in the way we as humans view and treat the environment. Through subversive uses and combinations of media, it has the power to destabilize our values and our cer-tainty about our place in the world, our treatment of the environment and what is required of us as citizens of the earth.

Zoë Livelybrooks

Art can address moral and/or ethical issues that science frequently skirts around. Second, art invites us to question answers to problems, which are frequently provided by science. Third, art is inherently and implicitly subjective, and since no issue can be viewed entirely objectively, it provides valuable additions to the objective opinions of science. Finally, on a broader note, I tend to question any-thing that has been given superior status in our society, and science definitely fits this description. Art is one avenue by which ordinary people can question the omnipotence of science.

Zoe Weiss

Art, unlike other fields, has the ability to reenchant politics with emotions, which at once both excites the public and communicates political issues more easily to them.

Megan Gleason

Thinking artistically opens new doors for imagination, beyond scientific experi-ments and can potentially have a much greater impact.

Makenzie Shepherd

Art challenges us to find that balance of creativity that expresses what cannot be written, encourages critical thinking, reveals solutions, moves people to action, and promotes access and equity. To challenge the concept of art just for viewing, but for participation and change.

Kelsey West

I feel that art has offered a tool to environmental activists that lets them show, in a less statistical way, many of the important issues associated with human impacts on the environment. It has also served as a means of expressing ideas and feel-ings in a way that more statistical or computerized mechanisms cannot

Manny Garcia

Art has the ability to affect on us without us even being aware of it. It shows up in unexpected places. Art breaks institutional barriers. It cannot be confined. Art refuses to be ignored. It encompasses an enormous range of disciplines, senses, and mediums. Art allows for the kind of dissemination of ideas and discussion that other disciplines do not. It transgresses language, economic status, and education. This is not to say that all art is simple and easy to comprehend… Art doesn’t need to provide all the answers; it encourages and necessitates a dia-logue.

Sophie Thackray

While science delivers solutions, facts and hypothesis, there are limits to its impact and ability to speak to diverse audiences. Art is capable of creating dis-cussions and raising important questions that have the power to change the way someone thinks.

Joy Hurlburt

Art is able to explore topics without being burdened by expectations for definite answers or complete objectivity. That lack of outcome can be more provocative than a simple presentation of facts and answers that can often conclude a dis-cussion. Letting the viewer continue the debate gives the topic greater longevity. In terms of ecological issues it becomes a valuable tool for advocacy, generating diverse views and continually inspiring more questions.

Ian Murphy

Art grants many different avenues of exploration. Not only is the aesthetic repre-sentation often created though art telling and evocative, but also the medium and the experience of making art itself.

Elliot Goodrich

Climate change issues affect every industry and person, so its beneficial that solutions are coming from artists, scientists, and businesspeople because they combine their unique focuses on aesthetics, symbolism, problem solving, and practicalities to break new ground.

Aubrey West

Much of the works showed the influential ability of artists to be activists and make a difference instead of just an artwork sitting in a gallery.

Casey Brogan

~~~~~~~~~~~

FIN