I was invited to present as part of the Art and the Environment Talk Series. A collaboration between the Ross Art Museum and the Department of Environment & Sustainability. This series includes artists, activists, and scholars and their efforts to confront and change the world around them for the better. All talks are free and open to the public.

The museum also has some fantastic related exhibitions as well: Our Changing Landscape: Life in the Anthropocene and Michelle Stitzlein: Demarcations and Delineations.

The full list of speakers in this year’s Art and the Environment Talk Series:

2/10 (Tues) 6:30pm  John Sabraw – Toxic Colors John Sabraw is an artist, activist, and professor at Ohio University. His work marries environmental cleanups, chemistry, and art into a cohesive whole. He uses the iron oxide in mine runoff to make paint pigments. He has recently collaborated with Gamblin oil paints, to make the “Reclaimed Earth Colors” paint set. 

2/24 (Tues) 6:30pm  Laura Ann Bergman – Regenerative Farming and Social Justice Laura Ann Bergman has been the farm liaison for Seminary Hill Farm since 2022. Laura Ann has spent her whole life growing food in Ohio. Seminary Hill Farm is part of Methodist Theological School in Ohio which works in pursuit of a just, sustainable and generative world.

3/3 (Tues) 6:30pm Jarod Anderson – Strange Naturalist Jarod Anderson is a nature writer, podcaster, and poet who has just published his fifth book Strange Animals which is also his fiction debut. His work revolves around a deep appreciation for the natural world, mental health and the healing power of nature. 

3/17 (Tues) 6:30pm Emma Kline – Living Art and Cross-disciplinary Work Emma Kline is the Lab Specialist for the Living Art and Ecology Lab at OSU. LAEL’s purpose is to create a space that fosters cross-disciplinary collaborations and invites students to engage with their local environment through artistic practices. 

BONUS! 3/18 (Wed) 4:15pm Lesley Wheeler – Mycocosmic Poetry Reading Lesley Wheeler is a poet, literary scholar and professor at Washington and Lee University. Her latest book of poetry, Mycocosmic, deals with navigating personal and planetary loss and regrowth following the example of mushrooms that flourish after forest fires.

3/24 (Tues) 6:30pm Amy Youngs – Art, Technology, and the Natural World Amy Youngs’ work is a blend of eco art, interactive sculptures, digital media, and technology into installation and interactive pieces. Young works as an artist and professor at OSU teaching both art and science and the confluence of the two. 

4/14 (Tues) 6:30pm Eve Warnock – Collaborative Art and Invasive Species – Eve Warnock is the founding artist of OBLSK, a creative group of artists, inventors and designers that create interactive installations. Her latest work has been a collaboration with the Columbus Parks and Recreation to use removed invasive plants in environmental sculptures for Columbus Arborfest.

4/21 (Tues) 6:30pm Carolina C. Barbosa – Open Data and Open Science Dr. Carolina C. Barbosa is a faculty member in OWU’s Department of Environment & Sustainability and has been advocating for open science practices through her work with the grassroot networks DSOS (Data Science and Open Science in Aquatic Research) and GLEON (Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network)

This show brings together artists across Ohio who focus on sustainability, agriculture, food justice, and natural ecologies. Through diverse materials and perspectives, these artists reflect on humanity’s relationship with the environment. Some incorporate found elements like waterway pollutants, plant-based dyes, and grass clippings, while others investigate topics ranging from climate change conspiracies to natural history and arthropods. Many draw directly from personal experiences as farmers, grocery workers, or environmental observers. Spanning painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, installation, and community-based practice, the works in this exhibition highlight the urgency of environmental issues while inviting dialogue and response.

Curated by Theresa Bembnister, DJ Hellerman, Megan Lykins Reich, and Christina Vassallo. Co-organized by the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH and Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Cleveland, OH.

The other artists in this exhibition: Catherine Clements (Bowling Green), Avery Mags Duff (Akron), Myles Dunigan (Oberlin), Tina Gutierrez (Cincinnati), Brian Harnetty (Columbus), Desert Kitchen Collective: Glenna Jennings, Jalisa Robinson & Friends (Dayton), Keith Lemley (Ravenna), Celeste Malvar-Stewart (Columbus), Lori Nix & Kathleen Gerber (Cleveland), Elena Osterwalder (Columbus), Praxis Fiber Workshop (Cleveland), John Sabraw (Athens), Charmaine Spencer (Cleveland), and Supermrin (Cincinnati).

Go check it out! https://www.contemporaryartscenter.org/experience/exhibitions/2025/05/ohio-now-state-of-nature

An event for people to drink tea and consider what we can learn from the billions of soil organisms who co-create the healthy conditions for plants to grow in – and in turn, nourish us. Tea is a plant, after all. After drinking, we fed our used teabags and paper cups back into the wormbin ecosystem. While it might seem strange to have tea with worms, springtails, mites, and billions of microscopic organisms, we are always having tea with them.

We discussed what we can learn from worm bin ecosystems. For instance, they show us the undigestable microplastics hidden in teabags – and they show us how our food and paper waste can be turned into valuable nutrients for gardens and indoor plants. Worm composting does not create unpleasant odors and does not produce methane, a greenhouse gas which is generated by food waste that rots in landfills.

For this event, we drank loose-leaf tea scooped into strainers or into small paper pouches. I’ve learned from the worms that some commercial tea bags are made of plastic, even those that really look like paper. Worms can’t eat it, soil doesn’t need it, and studies show that plants take microplastics up into their bodies. This is a problem for them and for animals like us, who eat plants.

Thousands of composting worms and arthropods and billions of microbes live inside this worm-shaped wagon. They are making rich compost from waste generated from my home, such as cardboard, wilted lettuce, banana peels, apple cores, dead plants, tea bags and used coffee grounds. This composting ecosystem includes a colony of red-wiggler worms (Eisenia Fetida), who have lived with me for thirty years. We have shared many meals. The fertilizer they make is fed to my houseplants, herbs, tomato plants, and lettuces. To publicly celebrate soil critters, I have mobilized my worm bin onto a wagon. Worms do their business in the dark; they do not announce to us that they offer solutions to climate change and they do not speak about their important role in circulating nutrients and healthy microbes in soils. I’m sharing this on their behalf because I hope other households will develop regenerative relationships with composting worms. Sharing nutrients with household worm ecosystem is a slow, steady way to reconnect one’s sense of self within the larger web of life.

The recycling of old into new is also how I approached making Mobile Soil Maker, this “Worm Wagon” ecosystem sculpture. I made it from the remnants of an old artwork, rather than using all new materials. You can see the original installation from 2004, Intraterrestrial Soundings.

This is in Madrid, Spain, but actually happening online, since we can’t all go to Madrid now. One of the pandemic positives is that the organizers have made it FREE – no conference fees. Just sign up here.

I’m thrilled to be included among such a great line up of speakers of artists and scientists; many I know and others I’m looking forward to knowing. JENNIFER PARKER, JORGE FERNÁNDEZ, GAIA BINDI, SAM DUPONT, NADJEJDA ESPINEL-VELASCO, GENE FELICE II, DAVID HARRIS, JUNIPER HARROWER, TRINIDAD IRISARRI, and CLAUDIO JOSÉ MAGALHAES. Check out the conference program. Thank you to JOSE CARLOS ESPINEL VELASCO for inviting me and for co-organizing this inaugural event.

I’ll be presenting a talk called: Softening Boundaries – Practicing Humility. It is on Tuesday, December 15 at 12:15pm EST. 18:15 Madrid time. Wish me luck!

Opening webinar event
November 12, 2020, 12:00–1:00pm PST (3:00-4:00pm EST)
Register for Zoom link here

My new project, Vegetal Entangling is a multimedia webpage love-letter to plants. It reflects on human-plant relationships and documents my practice of “plant noticing”. This exhibition, which asks, What Makes Us Human? provides a great context for my project:

Some of the inquiry conducted by these collaborators examines what it means to be something other than human, simultaneously helping reveal what makes us human. How do we talk about our humanness? Which of our taxonomies intersect? And how can (virtual) space facilitate more of these intersections? How are humans furthering creative, scientific, and scholarly research while responding to the pandemic in our institutions, in our bodies, in our environments and in our communities? How can researchers be alone together and work collectively — questioning, testing, and collaborating during COVID to educate communities at the intersection of art, culture, science, and politics? 

Curated by Jennifer Parker, artist and professor of Art and Digital Arts & New Media at the University of California Santa Cruz, this exhibition showcases the multifaceted approach of artists, humanists, and scientists working across disciplines to investigate art and genetics. Spearheaded by OpenLab Collaborative Research Center in collaboration with the Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery in the Arts Division, UC Santa Cruz.

Collaborators:
A.M. Darke, Alexa Burrell, Amy Youngs, Angélica Dass, ASSIST Lab, Avital Meshi, Brad Necyk, Center for Public Philosophy, Danielle Siembieda, Dorothy Santos, Enrique Leal, the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute, Gina Czarnecki, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Jenny Reardon, Jessie Kendall-Bar, Karolina Karlic, OpenLab Collaborative Research Center, UC Santa Barbara Gaucho OpenLab Initiative, Paloma Medina, Phylum (Carlos Castellanos, Johnny DiBlasi, Bello Bello), The Algae Society, The Kenneth S. Norris Center for Natural History, UCSC Astrobiology, UCSC Earth Futures Initiatives, UCSC Institute of the Arts and Sciences, Zac Zimmer, Zach Corse

What does it mean to have an ecoconsciousness? The works here offer multiple answers to that question. ecoconsciousness measures our interconnectivity with the natural world. It celebrates our links to the animals with whom we share the planet, to the trees, fruits, vegetables, herbs and insects that make life possible, to the land and waters that bear witness to our best and worst impulses and to the ecological systems that sustain us all. It encompasses our awareness both of the beauty of nature and the devastating horrors created by our efforts to exploit it. It manifests itself in artworks that bring the perilous consequences of our actions to our attention through striking images, immersive installations, evocative performances and rituals and practical proposals. It engages with fields as diverse as science, technology, poetry, politics, history, anthropology, art history and futurism. And it poses questions about our place in the cosmos with wit, sorrow, anger and hope.

Eleanor Heartney, Juror

The ecoconsciousness catalogue can be viewed on ecoartspace’s website. Print versions can be ordered there.

Can we break away from current agricultural practices which are intimately connected to desertification, water and soil pollution, antibiotic resistance, climate change and social and economic inequalities? In a two-hour discussion we are interested in considering a sustainable, multispecies perspective to farming, which could start in the soil and progress through thinking about the multiple ways we can consider food. Aquaponics, vertical farming, worms, soldier flies, and permaculture offer real solutions, where food is grown while respecting living beings, and the intertwined ecologies that support them.Humane food can be grown in urban or rural communities, though the soil is critical. How can we learn and care about living beings we cannot quickly know or see? What is care like in practice? We are also interested in exploring the concept of “citizen eco-artist” as so much of what we do resides in the spaces between actual science, sustainable practice and speculative fiction.

• This international talk with be livestreamed on youtube and recorded for later viewing.
  
• A coproduction of the Network for Prototyping the Future and Art Laboratory Berlin

In his podcast, Voices of Excellence, he asked me many great questions about my art and teaching practices. You’ll hear me talking about my recent work with virtual reality, augmented reality and about how living with worms has influenced me. We also discuss interdisciplinary teaching, creativity, eco art, bio art, art & science and art & technology.

My interview is on Soundcloud and on Apple iTunes.

And you can listen to all of the Voices of Excellence interviews on this regular podcast on Soundcloud or iTunes. They focus on the innovative work being done by faculty and staff in the College of Arts and Sciences at the Ohio State University.