The Bears Ears Education Center is excited to host an invigorating film screening and discussion on Saturday, September 14, 2024, about The Biocrust Project, featuring Kristen Redd, Program Manager at the Nature Conservancy's Dugout Ranch Canyonlands Research Center, and multidisciplinary artist Jorge Rojas, who helped create the project.
Read below for a reflection from Kristen Redd about how this unique collaboration came together, and be sure to register to attend the upcoming presentation on September 14.
Photo by Bill Bowman
The Canyonlands Research Center’s (CRC) Artist in Residence (AiR) program was created to encourage collaboration between artists and scientists with the hope that they would help communicate the science being conducted at the CRC to a broader audience. Since its founding in 2010, the CRC, run by The Nature Conservancy, has brought together scientists and conservation organizations to develop climate solutions for the Colorado Plateau.
Having the dynamic team of multimedia artist Jorge Rojas and US Geological Survey ecologist and researcher Sasha Reed as the first AiR collaborators was a dream come true. Both are incredible communicators and educators, and both have large networks in their specialties to pull from. For example, Jorge had a relationship with the Utah Museum of Contemporary Arts (UMOCA) and Sasha had her lab and team of people to bring in work ranging from computer modeling to field work. With this team of people, The Biocrust Project was created over two years through many Zoom meetings, time out in the desert in biocrust field sites, hiking, and filming.
On display at UMOCA from January until June 2024, The Biocrust Project is an educational and immersive experience of what is sometimes called “the living skin of the earth.” The installation included a 3D model of biocrust at the center of the room, a short film being projected, and audio narration from a multitude of voices, including Indigenous, scientific, and environmental perspectives on biocrust.
Biocrust – a complex community of lichens, mosses, and cyanobacteria – is sometimes overlooked, but it is a crucial component holding together our beloved local desert and anywhere on the planet that the sun touches the soil. We are learning more and more how important it is to ecological systems health, soil health, carbon sequestration, and so many other aspects of the environment.
The Biocrust Project asks the question “what is science?” Science is a way for us to learn to know our environment, but many of us think of science as only a Western way of thinking. Nikki Cooley, Diné woman, educator, and activist, states it clearly in the video: Indigenous people have been observing their environment, know their environment intimately, and have ways of being based on these observations. Traditional Indigenous Knowledge is Traditional Science, and the Western world needs Indigenous knowledge to meet the challenges of our times.
One of the most profound parts of the project is the exploration of the relationships between humans and the environment. The Biocrust Project is meant to be contemplative and evocative, to encourage people to consider their relationships to both the smallest and the largest parts of their surroundings – but more importantly to consider themselves a part of the environment. Our relationship to even the smallest things around us directly affects us. One take away from this project is the metaphor of community. Biocrust is a community of diverse organisms that all rely on each other, and can only reach resiliency through this interdependence.
It has been a true honor to work with artist Jorge Rojas, scientist Dr. Sasha Reed, the Blank Spaces Filmmakers Alec Lyons and Colby Bryson, and educator and activist Nikki Cooley. This collaboration of people has created something beautiful, interesting, educational, and reflective. This community of artistic, scientific, and Indigenous thinkers has taught me so much about what is possible when you are open to different perspectives, and I am truly grateful.
As I look to the future of what the next Canyonlands Research Center Artist in Residence project might be, I am excited at the endless possibility. I am looking forward to sharing this work with the Bears Ears Partnership community, and continuing the discussion about what art and science can achieve for conservation efforts.
To learn more about CRC’s programs, be sure to visit our website at CayonlandsResearchCenter.org