Through the month of April, explore a multimedia depiction of the ongoing crisis of species extinction through “In the Beginning: of Species,” an exhibition based on a collaboration between ecologists and writers from Colorado State University and The Center for Fine Art Photography.
Works in the exhibit by featured artist Alice Hargrave, with additional pieces by Debora Bernagozzi and Goesoeng Choi, are on display at The Green Room, 344 E. Mountain Ave., Fort Collins.
Crisis and Creativity, a Global Challenges Research Team funded by the School of Global Environment Sustainability at CSU, created this “science meets art” exhibit to help the public better understand the increasing threat that species loss poses to environmental sustainability around the world.
The research team — including CSU faculty and staff from the Departments of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, English, Biology, Forest and Rangeland Stewardship, and Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology — developed an extinction algorithm to create text-based works of art.
Meet the artists
Join the Crisis and Creativity Collaborative, with artist Alice Hargrave, for an event and reception on Thursday, April 19, 5:30-8 p.m.
This event will include poetry readings and extended viewing hours.
The text applies the loss of species to iconic prose to illustrate and emphasize the ongoing crisis of species extinction. Photo-based work, including a 22-foot-long by 10-foot-high printed silk from Hargrave’s Paradise Wavering, will support the text-based pieces. The exhibit also includes a sound piece featuring the call of birds on the extinction list; a video, Lost, by Bernagozzi; and a 5-foot long untitled image by Choi.
All of the works in the exhibit are intended to present a world in crisis, where the damage inflicted by human-caused global change is not experienced as facts and figures, but rather through a sensory encounter that takes hold of the audience’s imagination, offering an opportunity for deeper engagement.
The Crisis and Creativity Global Challenge Research Team includes:
- Felicia Zamora, poet laureate of Fort Collins
- Cedar Brant, poet and lecturer, University of New Mexico Department of English
- Ed Hall, assistant professor, CSU Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability
- Dan Beachy-Quick, professor, CSU Department of English
- Maria Fernandez-Gimenez, professor, CSU Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship
- Stewart Breck, research wildlife biologist with the United States Department of Agriculture-Wildlife Services-National Wildlife Research Center
- Rico Moore, wildlife journalist
- Christopher Schell, postdoctoral scientist in the CSU Department of Biology, and
- Ken Locey, biodiversity scientist, Indiana University.
Portions of the work in the exhibit were created by Jessica Crouch, an independent letterpress artist associated with the Wolverine Farm Letterpress & Publick House.
