Environment, Wellness, and Community: Eco Art and Water

Chair/Discussant: Elizabeth Demaray

Presentations:

Edible Desert Landscapes as Public Art

Matt Garica, Kansas State University, mattgarcia@ksu.edu

The Water Garden Museum in Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park

Dr. Stacie G Widdifield, University of Arizona, staciew@email.arizona.edu

and Dr. Jeffrey Banister, University of Arizona, banister@email.arizona.edu

Ground Work: Preparing the Next Generation of Visual Communicators

Ellen McMahon, University of Arizona, emcmahon@email.arizona.edu

Turbidity Paintings Project

Thomas Asmuth, University of West Florida, thomas.asmuth@gmail.com 

EcoArt is an artistic practice that focus on systems and interrelationships within our environment. Stimulating dialogue and encouraging awareness of the natural systems we coexist with, it is often realized through activist, community-based restorative or interventionist art. Environment, Wellness, and Community: EcoArt and Water, considers this practice through the lens of water. Bridging multiple disciplines, three eco artists and two art historians will present contemporary and historical art that addresses water through community practice, innovation, conservation, beauty and sustainable design. Matt Garcia, artist and co-founder of Desert ArtLabs, will present community based art that utilizes indigenous plants and the traditions of indigenous cultures to realize present day food resiliency in the desert southwest. Artist Thomas Asmuth will talk about his art and technology work that considers water quality in the everglades and will also present “Transpiration Garden,” a plant enabled initiative that he and his students are designing with artist Elizabeth Demaray which purifies water and supports local ecosystems. Fine artist Ellen McMahon will discuss her project, "Parallel Play: Interdisciplinary Responses to a Dry River” that was collected in the book Ground|Water: The Art, Design and Science of a Dry River. Art historians Dr. Stacie Widdifield and Dr. Jeffrey Banister will then present their research on a museum that is dedicated to promoting the visual culture of modern water in Mexico City.

http://demaray.camden.rutgers.edu/2017/02/06/aess-panel-2017-environment-wellness-and-community-eco-art-and-water/