Hanging cyanotypes that mimic local kelp forests. Mirrored rooms that show sea creatures “dancing.” A phone booth that gives viewers the perspective of a fish.
All those things and more will be on display at Birch Aquarium at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla starting Friday, Oct. 4.
Birch’s latest exhibition, titled “Embodied Pacific: Ocean Unseen,” consists of 11 installations intended to blend art and science in engaging viewers in scientific exploration through immersive, interactive experiences.
It is part of a bigger “Embodied Pacific” exhibit that itself is part of a regionwide arts initiative presented by the Getty Foundation known as “PST Art: Art & Science Collide.” More than 50 cultural, educational and scientific institutions throughout Southern California are participating in the initiative, including the La Jolla Historical Society and UC San Diego’s Mandeville Art Gallery, which are presenting parts of the exhibit “Helen and Newton Harrison: California Work,” and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla, which is presenting “For Dear Life: Art, Medicine and Disability.”
Birch’s exhibition asks viewers to consider how ocean science is not just about high-tech but also about the tools used to shape understanding of the ocean’s unseen mysteries.
Megan Dickerson, Birch Aquarium director of exhibits, said the show can provide a new perspective on cutting-edge research for those who don’t have access to academic papers that might outline the technology and its uses.
“Some of it is so critical to our planetary survival,” Dickerson said. “So I think the value here is that artists are looking at that … through their lens.”
One installation, “How to Look Into the Ocean,” features large-scale biomorphically shaped sculptures in a dimly lighted space. The sculptures, created by Claudine Arendt in collaboration with Scripps Oceanography scientists Mark Ohman and Sven Gastauer, are snapshots of plankton drifting through ocean water that are “brought to life” with touch.
The installation “Kumeyaay Ha Kwaiyo” features a midsize tule boat by Priscilla Ortiz that hangs above guests, as if floating on the ocean. A film by Andrew James Pittman tells the behind-the-scenes story of how boat making “embodies Indigenous resilience, resistance and revival,” according to Birch.
“Superradiance. Embodying Earth” by Memo Akten and Katie Peyton Hofstader features a mirrored room with projections on two walls.
“The projections are … plants and sea creatures taken from photographs and video of our actual animals here at Birch Aquarium and morphed with human dancing forms,” Dickerson said. “So you look at this and [think] ‘This is familiar.’ But the scientists and artists behind it are interested in the idea of mirror neurons in our brains [both humans and sea creatures]. You see a part of your species in another species.”
Dickerson said the exhibition may raise new questions and generate empathy for ocean species.
“It can bring you into a world where most of us don’t dive or ever see,” she said. “So how do you protect a kelp forest that you never see? You have this feeling of ‘This is worth protecting. This is beautiful.’ I think that’s the value here.”
“I’m really excited. I feel like we’re really hitting it,” Dickerson added. “For some people who have an art lens, they’re going to have a really great time. [Those with] a science lens are also going to have a really good time. I love it.”
“Embodied Pacific: Ocean Unseen” will run through Sept. 1 next year and is included with general ission to Birch Aquarium. Learn more at aquarium.ucsd.edu/exhibits/embodied-pacific.
Several other San Diego locations also are hosting parts of the “Embodied Pacific” exhibition, including these sites at UC San Diego in La Jolla:
• “Embodied Pacific: Three Lives,” featuring works about “first women of oceanography” Easter Ellen Cupp, June Pattullo and Anita Smith Hall, at Gallery QI through Friday, Dec. 6, and The Gallery at Geisel Library through Sunday, Dec. 22
• “Embodied Pacific: Seaways” at the Visual Arts Gallery@SME through Dec 6
• “Embodied Pacific: Through a Porcelain Cast” at The Nest at Geisel Library through Dec. 22
• “Embodied Pacific: Extraction” at Gallery QI from Thursday, Jan. 2, to Friday, March 14
For more details and locations, visit embodiedpacific.com. ♦
