{"id":1011,"date":"2020-03-21T15:06:34","date_gmt":"2020-03-21T22:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eahgrad\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2020-03-21T15:06:35","modified_gmt":"2020-03-21T22:06:35","slug":"scientists-making-art-marine-food-webs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eahgrad\/2020\/03\/21\/scientists-making-art-marine-food-webs\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Making Art: Marine Food Webs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Art by: Kevin Clark<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When I arrived at the Marine\nFood Webs: Drifters to Swimmers<\/em> exhibit I was expecting a clich\u00e9 sculpture\nof a Chinook salmon snapping at a fly. Entering the calm, dimly lit Giustina Gallery<\/em> at the LaSells Stewart Center<\/em>, I found\nsomething much more thought-provoking. Paintings, drawings, sculptures, and\nphotography created by marine researchers hung just below discreet light\nsources like diatoms in the sea. An informational panel quietly explained to me\nthat the dialog being held between artist and viewer is on the importance of\nsustaining and preserving oceanic food webs \u201cfrom microscopic plankton to those\nthat consume them.\u201d Furthermore, the panel proposed that this exhibit was\ndesigned to bridge the gap between the arts and the sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The creations along the walls took on all shapes, sizes, and\ncolor schemes. Among the smallest was a collection of highly detailed plankton\nsculpted from clay. Plankton themselves can exhibit a wide range of shapes and\nsizes, but this display was an enlarged depiction of the microscopic variety. Otherworldly;\nthey had spikes, long antennae, frills, and ridges, many with no discernable\ntop or front. They were complemented by a series of high-resolution microscope\nimages of real plankton. These images captured the creatures in action:\npaddling with thousands of feather-like cilia, pumping through strange\ncontractions of their bodies, or otherwise swimming in a more or less\nrecognizable fashion. In the dry silence of the gallery, the images conjured an\nalmost audible illusion of liquescent locomotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miniscule as they may be, plankton are far from\ninsignificant. Drifting along, not too far below the ocean\u2019s surface, they form\nthe basis of the marine food web. It is through their photosynthetic bodies\nthat the ocean is able to sequester atmospheric carbon, though their short\nlifespans do not allow it to be stored for long. Carbon is more effectively\nstored when the tiny, often geometric, creatures are consumed by larger animals\nlike fish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gallery indeed housed many artistic iterations of fish. Some,\nlike the stately salmon, were expressed boldly with deep blues and blacks\ncontrasted against white backgrounds \u2013 they seemed to be leaping from the\ncanvas as they would while struggling upstream to spawn. Others were more\nabstract, capturing not their movement, but the brilliant and subtle ways that\nlight is reflected off the smooth, soft, spotted bodies of native trout. The\nbeauty of these creatures reaches the deep recesses of the psyche where, through\nsome ancestral memory, we recognize in them a direct connection between the natural\nfood web and humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Painting by: Esteban Comacho Steffensen<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The connection between the natural food web and humans was\nnot lost of the artist-scientists who helped populate the exhibit. A collection\nof photography provided a human presence among the fish and the plankton. Showing\na more tangible side of the debate, the camera had captured marine researchers\nhard at work taking measurements, loading boats, and installing specialized\nmonitoring instruments. In their candid expressions could be discerned a mix of\nfocus and of pleasure. These intelligent and motivated individuals were engaged\nin an epic battle to save the seas and protect its myriad creatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, my eye was caught next by a large painting of a\ndark and stormy sea. A flush of biodiversity fills the bottom two thirds of the\nperspective; jellyfish, squid, crabs, fish, coral, krill, and eels. In the top\ncorner, we can see just above the ocean\u2019s surface in the distance a fishing\nship towing a net, into which, presumably, all these creatures will be entrapped.\nThe deep teal, dark greens, and black of the midnight ocean were perforated by\nred corals and light reflected from the skin, scales, and shells of the creatures.\nThe piece is alive with motion: rolling waves, a trolling boat, creatures\ndarting every which way, and the implied flow of energy across the food web and\nup the food chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before leaving, I stood long before two of the largest\npaintings in the gallery. The first was set in the darkest depths of the ocean\nwhile the other was in the light blue near the surface. In the former image,\nonly a few creatures drifted silently through the purple-grey gloom. The light\nwas produced from within the creatures as the sun\u2019s energetic rays could no\nlonger reach them. It was still, like the gallery room itself, empty of action\nand quiet in reflection. In the latter image beams of white, almost twinkling\nlight radiated through the water from top to bottom. The numerous creatures\nseemed to be drawn upward, imbibing waves of pure energy to a point that they\nthemselves had become nearly transparent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Painting by: Esteban Comacho Steffensen <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Painting by: Esteban Comacho Steffensen <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In these two paintings I saw duality of nature on Earth.\nYes, there was the difference between light and dark, but there was something\nmore. In one the light was external and in the other light came from within. As\nwe live on this planet we must survive from it, our light, so to speak, comes\nexternally. But as thinking, feeling, and creating individuals our inner light has\nthe power to guide us, and those around us, through dark times. As artists, we\nreach deep inside ourselves, into the darkest depths, to retrieve something\nuseful that speaks across language. As scientists, we strive to meet the\nchallenges before us, to create a brighter world where issues of justice or\nhunger are theoretical concepts and not daily life. As students of Environmental\nArts and Humanities, like this exhibit so wonderfully accomplished, we endeavor\nbridge these noble goals; to connect the inner realms and the outer realities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I arrived at the Marine Food Webs: Drifters to Swimmers exhibit I was expecting a clich\u00e9 sculpture of a Chinook salmon snapping at a fly. Entering the calm, dimly lit Giustina Gallery at the LaSells Stewart Center, I found something much more thought-provoking. Paintings, drawings, sculptures, and photography created by marine researchers hung just… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10098,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1103788],"tags":[365,707809,1385941,1385940,1385939,1385942,1385943,155],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections-on-events","tag-art","tag-environmental-arts-and-humanities","tag-food-webs","tag-giustina-gallery","tag-lasells-stewart-center","tag-marine-research","tag-oceans","tag-oregon-state-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eahgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eahgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eahgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eahgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10098"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eahgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eahgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1018,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eahgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions\/1018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eahgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eahgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/eahgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}