2015 Conference

Full Presentation Panel

Arts and Humanities Efforts in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network: Understanding Perceived Values and Challenges

Dr. Lissy Goralnik, MFA, PhD

Calls for interdisciplinary approaches to environmental problem- solving are common across the biophysical and social sciences. Recently, some of these collaborations have incorporated the creative arts and humanities, including projects across the 24 sites of the US Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) network. A substantial body of artistic and written work has been produced by LTER-affiliated sites. However, there has been no systematic analysis of this work. We used a survey and follow-up interviews with LTER Principal Investigators (PIs) to understand the extent and nature of arts and humanities inquiry in the LTER network and to assess perceptions about the values and challenges associated with it. Nineteen of the 24 LTER sites agree or strongly agree that arts and humanities inquiry is important and relevant for the sites. Perceived values of this work include its goodness in and of itself, its ability to foster outreach and public involvement, and its ability to inspire creative thinking. Contrarily, participants identified funding, available labor, and available expertise as limiting factors in the growth of arts and humanities inquiry in the LTER network. Respondents highlighted themes relevant to the relationship between ecological science and ethics, including a willingness to accept fostering empathy, an identified value of arts and humanities inquiry, as pertinent to LTER network goals and research on some level. This ethical potential of arts and humanities inquiry in the LTER network provides an opportunity to bridge ecological research with arts and humanities. 

Performing Agriculture: The “Survival Pieces” of Artists Helen and Newton Harrison

Leslie A Ryan

Ecological artists Helen and Newton Harrison, frequently cited as the “pioneers” of the environmental art movement, have engaged large scale ecological projects since 1970 when they determined to do no work that didn’t advantage the biosphere. They explored issues of basic sustainability in an early array of artworks entitled “Survival Pieces.” The series began with “Making Earth” (1970) and expanded to include a portable fish farm (1971) and a portable orchard (1972), among others. The Survival Pieces critically investigated food production, food security and the sustainability of our actions. As Wendell Berry has said, food is our most persistent relationship with the environment, and we are participants in agriculture. This presentation examines this early work, and its relevance to ethical land use and contemporary issues of food production.

 There was great interest in the 1970s for the issues addressed by the Harrisons: the Whole Earth Catalog was published 1968 to 1972; scientist Norman Borlaug received the Nobel Peace Prize for his foundational work with the Green Revolution; and in 1972 both the Clean Water Act and a ban on DDT  were passed. The issues raised in the Survival Pieces resonate today, as seen in the championing of local food production by communities worldwide.

 Explorations into food production, food security and the sustainability of our actions are becoming crucial as rapid urbanization deepens the divide between everyday life and an environment that is increasingly elsewhere and distant. This is an ethical crisis, notes Roger King, as ethical relationships are nurtured in the near environment: we learn to care for the environment as a whole by engaging what is at hand. The Harrisons’ ecological art practice has the potential to inform and re-imagine how we might appropriately use and live with the land and the other species which sustain us.

Horse Bones and Black Mayonnaise: A Brief History of Transboundary Pollution in New York City’s Watery Frontiers

Assoc. Professor Elizabeth Albert

New York City has long treated its watery frontiers as a deep gulf between the visible world and a bottomless other; a netherworld where one could hide and dispose of its unwanted; a place to make things disappear. Only recently, in the wake of Super Storm Sandy, has there begun a broad reckoning with our neglected shorelines and toxic waterways.

Two of NYC’s most abused waterways, Newtown Creek and Dead Horse Bay tell remarkable versions of the development of New York City and the resulting environmental consequences.  This presentation will offer a visual tour tracing the history of these two compromised sites and recent efforts at their remediation and revitalization.

Here is a brief description of the two sites:

• The Newtown Creek is a highly polluted industrial waterway recently designated an EPA Superfund site. It was and to a degree still is, the engine room of glittering Manhattan just across the East River. More than a century of oil and other production has left Newtown Creek’s bottom coated with a ten-foot layer of toxic sludge nicknamed “black mayonnaise.”  

• Dead Horse Bay lies just outside JFK International Airport. A century ago, pre-automobile, these shores were the site of 26 animal rendering plants where legions of New York City’s horses were chopped up and boiled into fertilizer by the city’s poorest work force. Later, the area became landfill, ultimately breeched by the tide.  To this day, the beach is littered with horse bones and glass tinkling in the waves.

These two sites are part of the interdisciplinary manuscript, Silent Beaches, Untold Stories: New York City’s Forgotten Waterfront, which explores ten lesser-known waterways through the intersecting lenses of environmental science, social justice, history, short fiction, and contemporary art. This presentation will offer a sample of the research for this project.

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Ben Cosgrove

Independent musician Ben Cosgrove has held artist residencies at Isle Royale National Park, Acadia National Park, and the Vermont Studio Center.  Currently resident artist at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Oregon, Cosgrove is working on a new set of works in collaboration and conversation with biologists, ecologists, and naturalists in the area. He will present on this work.