SAC's Meet & Greet series by Dr. Ahn
This is SAC (Science, Art, and Culture) initiative's new Meet & Greet series, in which we will visit, meet, and interview exhibitions/people working on the interface of science and art for environmental sustainability. Through the series, we will create video/audio files to share with the GMU community and anyone interested beyond GMU. Thank you for your interest!
6. Emerging Ecologies (October 2023): architecture and the rise of environmentalism -(https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5609)
"Buildings produce nearly 40% of the world’s yearly carbon emissions. Emerging Ecologies: Architecture and the Rise of Environmentalism explores how architects in the US responded to the environmental crisis of the 1960s and 1970s, when concern with rising pollution and runaway resource use spurred widespread activism on behalf of the natural world. Tracing the innovative, fantastical, and daring projects that architects proposed as environmentalism gathered steam" (video and photos coming soon)
5. LASER in NYC (Feb 2023) - Leonardo Art Science Rendezvous An art, science, and technology panel was moderated by Ellen K. Levy and Patricia Olynyk, Co-directors of the NYC LASER and featured presentations by Caroline Jones, Aviva Rahmani, and DJ Spooky. See photos in Gallery.
4. Environmental Justice Exhibition: The Yanomami Struggle at the Shed -Art and Environmental Activism in the Amazon (for EVPP 378) - see the Shed website and NYT article for more
3. ECOART in ACTION book where Dr. Ahn has contributed to a chapter with The Rain Project is now available (published Feb. 2022; see the cover image of the book above)
2. Meeting with Betsy Damon (November 2019 at her studio/home) - For the first of SAC's Meet & Greet series I came up to NYC to meet artist Betsy Damon, who I as a speaker for our EcoScience + Art lecture series. This time, we had a chance to review some of her lifetime work, focusing more on her upcoming book on "living water". Betsy Damon's art practice revolves around interconnectivity. Here goes an excerpt of Betsy's new book by her own reading to share:
1. Jackie Brookner, SP 2020
"Long-term success of ecological restoration, at all scales from the local to the global, necessitates transformation of the dominant ways humans understand, behave, value, and relate to natural processes and ecosystems. Artists and scientists can do more together to affect positive transformation than either can do separately. It is not a matter of the scientists providing the hard-core research and artists the soft outreach; rather, the dynamics engendered in the space between disciplines is full of information necessary to solve complex problems at the systemic level…" (SER Newsletter 2015). On the five year anniversary of her passing on May 15, 2015. I should have participated in the following tributary, but it has been hectic with finals. However, I previously shared my experience with Brookner through one of my publications where I wrote quite personally about my encounter with Jackie and about our deep conversation about systems approach, which helped so much with my efforts to link ecological science/ecosystem restoration practices with art. Her work and words speak volumes for the advancement of ecosystem restoration science.
