Photograph: Priscila Buschinelli and Art Exchange.
This is another brief post. I couldn’t resist writing something because I’m excited about the bio-art exhibition that is is about to open on my University’s campus. Plants are taking over the Art Exchange. Given the proximity of the wildflower meadows and the cork oaks that function as quiet war memorials (see my recent lecture in Boise, Idaho titled Getting to the Roots of the Matter: Trees and the Envirnnemtal Imagination in 19th Century Literature), I like the foregrounding of an ongoing enquiry into what constitutes ‘ecology’ and ‘environment.’ I wouldn’t be the first to strip those words down to their etymological origins, so I won’t do that here; for a compelling account, see Timothy Morton’s Ecology Without Nature (Harvard, 2007). Well, the exhibit is Jevan Watkins Jones: Occupied with Plants. I’m glad that we’ve taken this interdisciplinary initiative. It says a lot about why I work where I do and what makes the everyday interesting. Jevan is an artist who has been working with our Biological Sciences department. The Wild Writing MA that I direct is also a collaboration with Bio Sciences. There’s a preview of the exhibition on Thursday evening, so I’ll write more soon. (Meanwhile, the wildflower meadows seem to be working as corridors for insects, animals and birds.)
