What happens if you put together artists and scientists and ask them to create a work of environmental art? Exactly this has been the essence of a WDC student project – a collaborative effort of the University of Helsinki, the Aalto University and the Finnish Museum of Natural History (FMNH).
“Reclaiming territories” was an idea of docent Susanna Lehvavirta, researcher of the Urban Ecology Research Group in Viikki and at the FMNH, and Markku Hakuri, professor of environmental art in Aalto University. The project title reflects two of Susanna’s main research interests: assisted migration in climate change and green roofs. In both examples nature is supported in claiming back its territory.
A colourful bunch
At the beginning of this year, 17 students were submitted to the course: a colourful bunch of natural science students, fine art students, Finnish and international students. The course topic blended in with Green Design, one of the four major programs of the University of Helsinki’s Designing the Future – World Design Capital theme. The aim of the course: finding ways of expressing scientific phenomena, research and results by means of environmental art. Doctoral student of Environmental Art Scott Andrew Elliott, plant researcher and docent Timo Saarinen and doctoral student Elina Vaara, mentored the environmental art course.
For Elina, this has been a new experience in two ways: it was her first time teaching and her first serious encounter with art in practise. She admits that “I had been sceptical about artists engaging with science in a purely emotional and unfounded way”. In order to avoid any shallow statements, the student teams attended lectures on climate change and its impact on diversity as well as lectures on the foundations of environmental art. Only then they started developing their ideas. In addition, each work of art was carefully evaluated by a professional jury of Susanna Lehvävirta and Markku Hakuri.
Eye-opener in every respect
And the outcome? Apart from five thought provoking works of art in the Kumpula Botanical Garden the course was also an eye-opener for its participants. “The collaboration between the students worked really well, I was impressed that new understanding arouse for both the artists and the scientists” says Elina. Last but not least, the project has been an enrichment for the mentors themselves. As a formerly rather rationally-thinking biologist, Elina states “I have come to look at phenomena from different angles and tackle issues more creatively!”
Creating ways towards a sustainable and liveable future is the World Design Capital’s main objective, and this demands both grounded knowledge and freedom of thought. Making artists and scientists collaborate seems a very promising strategy.
In the next weeks, five stories will tell about each of the five art pieces that arouse from the student project.
Kumpula Botanical Garden »»
Scott Andrew Elliott’s blog post “Inventing Nature” »»
Student’s blog: “Diary from environmental art course” »»
Hello Claudia, thank you for this report, it looks like a really interesting activity. Many articles about art-science focus mostly on the art, so it is great to read here that there is a real “cross-pollination” (I like that word!) in both directions in which Elina Vaara as a biologist said it helped her to new perspectives. Being a scientist myself in climate-related research, I can absolutely confirm her statement! It is also my experience that collaboration or discussions with artists give me many new insights into my own perception and understanding of my research. It is amazing to see how artists look at issues in completely different ways than scientists. Sometimes they inspire scientific questions that I haven’t thought of, but there is also a less tangible impact. The artistic process, the way a thought is being developed into a creative process and a work of art, is different from what scientists are used to, and it helps us scientists to be more creative too.
Here in Edinburgh we are bringing artists and scientists together in an initiative called ASCUS (the name is a story in itself…), with great success, although we also see many prejudices among scientists similar to what Elina describes in the first statement (artists seem generally much more open to science than scientists to artists…).
Actually I found this blog because somebody last week at a conference told me about an interesting climate change exhibit in Helsinki, and I haven’t been able to find out more.
It shows the ecology of wetlands, so realistic that visitors have to wear rubber boots. As I have worked in Arctic wetlands too, I would be interested if anybody knows what she was talking about and if it might have something to do with the environmental art that you describe here.
Good to hear from you, Stephan, and thanks for your comment! Quite like you, I am excited to see current projects in Helsinki, Edinburgh and elsewhere that aim to overcome conservative boundaries of art and science, pop- and serious culture, or whatever other boundaries that have grown over the last centuries and that never really proved useful, let alone fruitful.
It is also interesting to hear that ASCUS is encountering problems mainly related to prejudiced scientists. I am glad that here in Finland, and especially within the context of Helsinki’s World Design Capital initiatives, both artists ad scientists gradually open up to each others’ ideas. Still, I absolutely understand your point. I guess it might be easier for artists to follow the path of logic and reason than for scientists to open up to ideas that are contradictory or seem at least intangible.
Anyway, the exhibition you are talking about is “KLIMA X” in Heureka, the Finnish Science Center in Vantaa. Funnily enough, I am at the moment working on a study which investigates the impact of this exhibition on the climate change concepts of teenagers. The rubber-boot situation, however, rather alludes to the flooding of land due to melting glaciers. Wetlands do not play as great a role in the exhibition as you may have understood. It is, to my knowledge, also not related to any WDC environmental art projects. Anyway, I am sure the exhibitions makers will be glad to tell you more!
Hello Claudia, thank you for your reply; KLIMA X in Heureka is probably the exhibition that the person meant, and I got the details wrong (we talked only very briefly, switching between three different languages…). It is very interesting to hear that you are evaluating its impact on the perceptions of climate change. This is a very important question. It seems to me that, until recently, many public engagement activities didn’t evaluate enough how they actually influence visitors’ perceptions and attitudes, not only in climate science but all areas of science. So your work sounds like a much-needed contribution, and I will certainly be interested.
One of the issues many of my science colleagues don’t really understand is that attitudes and perceptions about a topic are not mainly based on scientific evidence, but on a lot of psychological and social factors as well as the way a topic is communicated.
So, drawing the topic back to the original article, this is where art-science collaborations are so important. I think we need to forge more links between different communities and different approaches, and it’s just great to see that there are collaborative projects in so many places now.