Respect to a Dynamic World

Photo &Blog ~Ryan Mudgett

The role of beauty and its position in conservation was always a very serious matter to Aldo Leopold, which can be seen in his most famous book A Sand County Almanac. Without finding simple pleasures in nature it may be quite difficult to listen to what your environment has to tell you. Leopold writes at the beginning of the section “Song of Gavilan,” “The life of every river sings its own song, but in most the song is long since marred by the discords of misuse.” Here he is speaking of a global cycle of anthropocentric perturbations which includes land and water misuse. He goes on to say “Overgrazing first mars the plants and then the soil. Rifle, trap, and poison next deplete the larger birds and mammals; then come a park or forest with roads and tourists. Parks are made to bring the music to the many, but by the time many are attuned to hear it there is little left but noise”(Leopold 159). This noise Leopold speaks of is best tied in at the end of the section where he writes “That the good life on any river may likewise depend on the perception of its music, and the preservation of some music to perceive, is a form of doubt not yet entertained by science” (Leopold 163). We can appreciate rivers by learning how to listen to their harmony. Each drainage and its corresponding riparian habitats have their own melody. It’s up to the listener to decide whether or not they enjoy the music or not.  It can be tough to appreciate all the splendors of nature when you are constantly reminded of all the harm we have done. I think it is time to find joy in all of the complexities that our wilderness provides us no matter what landscape you live in. There is nature everywhere, and don’t forget we humans are part of it as well.  Even if you are not quite sure what it is that makes your landscape so amazing, a sense of wonder can often lead into a journey of passion and stewardship for the land and waters that you call home.

Monomoy Wilderness Artists-in-Residence

The following artists have been selected For the Monomoy Wilderness portion of Aldo & Leonardo. They will be monitoring migratory shore birds and horseshoe crabs during their stay from June 17 to July 13, 2013.

Elisabeth Nickles is a mixed media sculptor living in Philadelphia. She has produced bodies of work in bronze, glass and paper. She attended the Boston Museum School and The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and in 2007 received an MFA from Alfred University. Her work has recently been shown at the Philadelphia Airport, Schmidt Dean Gallery and Exit Art. She is currently a Muralab artist in Residence at NextFab through the Breadboard Science Center and Mural Arts where she is using new technologies to make small scale models that will be exhibited at the Esther Klein Science Center as possible projects for public spaces.  During the past year, she completed a large scale commission for the SEPTA Arts in Transit program as well as a large wall sculpture for the offices of The Reinvestment Fund in Philadelphia.

Megan Singleton is an artist, educator, and nature explorer.  She is adjunct faculty at Webster University and the Art Institute of Saint Louis, where she teaches Papermaking, Photography, and Digital Art Classes.   In 2005 she received her BFA in photography from Webster University and earned her MFA in sculpture from Louisiana State University in 2012.  Her studio is based in Saint Louis Missouri, where she investigates and collects materials from the landscape that can be used in the papermaking process. Her exhibition record includes national and international shows, and private collectors and museums in the Southern United States have acquired her work over that last three years.
 Jeremy Underwood's work embodies man's detached relationship with nature.  He challenges viewers to reflect upon our consumer culture, the relationship we have with our environment and the pervasion of pollution. He has grown from a formal education in photography at the University of Central Missouri in photography, studied at the University of Central Lancashire in England and is currently working on his MFA and teaching at the University of Houston. Jeremy has been published in Photo District News magazine, has been awarded fellowships from such institution as the Society for Photographic Education and the Vermont Studio Center and has received a full doctoral fellowship from the University of Houston.  Recent exhibitions include the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center and the University of Houston.  

El Toro Wilderness and PISO proyecto

By Noemí Segarra and Félix Rodríguez-Rosa

 

For PISO proyecto, March was a very significant month as we were still in the initial stages of activating the now open space -once San Mateo Community which was expropriated in the heart of Santurce, Puerto Rico. For us this meant starting from scratch to clean, sweep the space, to design and build a mobile PISO 20'x10' platform in collaboration with second year architecture students from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus.

We remember brainstorming together in our PISO practice before the first Aldo & Leonardo meeting what wilderness meant. PISO took the time to research and dialogue about how wilderness is translated as a word, as a concept in Spanish. This took us down several paths of meaning, places, spaces, conceptions and understandings. The whole language, translation, definition, placement conversation arose. More questions than answers arose. This is an ongoing preoccupation PISO is invested in: decodifying meaning or the possibility of actualizing meaning from our experience in the present.

From our experience with Aldo, we identified some practices that we share with scientists. For example, we stay with something for a long time to see how it changes over time. We pay attention to minuscule details no matter how imperceptible or insignificant they seem. The first nature we study is that within us. From this practice we relate, move and are/exist in the world. In our understanding the knowledge derived from the practice of listening to oneself is not only a tool for movement or art, but for a way of seeing and experiencing the world and the various ecologies we constantly move in and out of.

This necessity to pinpoint this choice, quality of life and experiencing, builds the foundation of our practice that also stems from being pedestrians. Walking in the city, or walking everywhere, means moving at a slower pace and getting to see things that if you are riding a bike, or driving a car, you don't get to see. Thus this practice of seeing things beyond or past the surface to get to know them from different angles, even if this means we get to see what is not meant to be revealed­––all of this stuff is what we are after.

As PISO practitioners we document. We document via writing, taking notes, blogging, taking photographs, videos or audio recordings. We try as varied ways to catch the spirit of whatever we are experiencing. Also when we take the practice places we often experience we are the ones being dissected or studied by the gaze of the other that often expects we do "something." Added to this experience we have our own expectations of what needs to happen? We become true experimentalists or scientists when we decide what happens if we do not perform, and we just perform to whatever we are receiving from this moment or space/placement?

Surprisingly, what stood out for me -Noemí- was the nature of human relations how they entwined and gave shape to this whole encounter.

Something about communicating without words or beyond words and the quality of paying attention, showing up, being present and truly listening. We had a full array of possibilities as going to the wilderness meant waking up very early, taking a bus to El Tren Urbano, to meet with María in Jardín Botánico, to the drive to El Yunque. This whole segment of the trip which I think only a few PISO practitioners experienced was an epilogue each day we came to fieldwork. The degradation or range of experiences and spaces we traveled to get to the forest brought as varied landscapes and experiences framing the raw experience of what was considered the research itself.

Conversations we had with María Rivera on the way to Sabana Station offered entry points to what lay ahead. The trip and days were long.

Our conversations with María opened the day for experiencing. The collaboration implied collaboration and collective work, Yet it also meant close, one on one, or smaller group or duets in which a different type of exchange took place. Just like when a scientist goes out to nature to pay close attention and gather precise data, the interactions between scientists and / or fellow artists proved to be all full of newness which implies attention and a kind of presence and intention that is what PISO desires to cultivate.