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I’m looking forward to speaking at Reed Hilderbrand Landscape Architects on Wednesday, March 13th at 6:30PM. I’ll be presenting my Hybrid Vigor talk. This particular presentation will be geared towards landscape architects/designers and others interested in using a combination of art, design, and ecology as a public engagement tool for landscape stewardship and ecology-minded decision making.
Event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP here.
I’ll be a writer-in-residence at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest this April as part of the Long Term Ecological Research Site Reflections program at the Spring Creek Project. Beyond working on an artist book for fall publication I’ll be exploring opportunities for project work in the greater Portland area. As part of my program I’ll be giving a series of public talks and workshops in Portland, Eugene, and Corvallis. If interested in hosting a talk, you can find booking details including talk abstracts here.
As several ambitious projects come to a close this fall, I look forward to new opportunities in 2019.
I’m excited to report that I will be participating in Now + There’s Public Art Accelerator program. This incubator-type program provides six local artists with training, mentorship, and funding to create a community-driven public art project in the city of Boston this summer/fall. I have yet to line up a community partner or site, but am open to ideas. So, please reach out.
I’ll continue to work with Dr. Aaron Ellison at the Harvard Forest to produce a publication about our collaborative art-based science communication projects. The book with be project archive, design case study, and critical essay on our arts-science collaborations including Hemlock Hospice and Warming Warning. One can read a sample of our co-authored writings in the October issue of SciArt Magazine and a SocArXiv preprint for our chapter in the upcoming Routledge Handbook of Art, Science, and Technology Studies.
My public speaking engagements and workshops continue to play an ever expanding role in my practice. This year included over 30 public talks/tours starting with my Hybrid Vigor presentation at the New Directions in American Landscapes conference in Philadelphia. The year concluded with a talk for educators with Dr. Aaron Ellison, entitled Environmental Art: Reflection, Provocation, and Action at Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero.
In response to requests, I’ve developed three new talks for 2019 including a professional development talk for students and recent graduates which uses my career track as an example of creating an intentional self-directed interdisciplinary practice. The talk is not a stereotypical “how-to” career advice presentation, but an empowering, yet cautionary, conversation about creative growth and self-determination. Interested in hosting a talk or workshop at your organization? Click here for lecture abstracts and availability.
-DBB
A Big, Red, and Shiny thank you to Karolina Hac and Leah Triplett Harrington. I appreciate Karolina's thoughtful interview about the recent Warming Warning installation. Read about the project origins, goals, benefits, audience response, and more on Big Red & Shiny.
New artwork, and recent work from Triple Decker Ecology and Harvard Forest projects, has been added to the Mercantile section of website. New work for sale includes Wetland Command Flag (silkscreened canvas, brass grommets, and thread. 18 x 24 inches, 2018. Edition of 13), a collaboration with Helen Popinchalk of Trifecta Editions.
I am excited to be part of a “creature double feature” on December 1st at the Somerville Museum. I’ll present the new Hemlock Hospice documentary and Mary E. Lewey and Avi Paul Weinstein, will present Picturing Consequences, a collaborative mixed-media video installation that playfully imagines the oddities we create in our own environment. This happening is the final public event of this community art show so be prepared to celebrate this remarkable exhibition with curator Pennie Taylor and the rest of the collaborators. Event is 6-9PM.
I’m grateful for the feature by Colin Durant in the Harvard Gazette this week. In addition to the thoughtful review, the article includes some remarkable time-lapse captures of the installation on a bright sunny October day. Read the piece here.
I’m honored to participate in Now + There’s 2019 Public Art Accelerator program. I can hardly wait to get started.
A bit about the program In the words of Now and There’s Lean Triplett Harrington:
“Can we change the way Boston creates public art? Over the last year, we've been trying to do just that. With 2018's pilot program, the Public Art Accelerator, Now + There partnered with six Boston-based artists and communities from East Boston to Roxbury. Artists and communities worked collaboratively to present engaging, interactive, and temporary artworks. As they developed projects particular to neighborhoods around Boston, Now + There provided curatorial, technical, and financial support. We learned, we laughed, and together, we made art and shared experiences.
We’re excited to continue learning, growing, and supporting Boston’s artists and communities and humbled to announce the second year of Now + There’s Public Art Accelerator, generously funded by Joyce Linde. In 2018, Linde quietly fostered our own growth by supporting our pilot year of the Accelerator. We’re deeply grateful for her commitment to Boston artists and communities.
We can't wait to start working with David Buckley Borden, Pat Falco, Samantha Fields, Dell Hamilton, Cat Mazza, and Daniela Rivera to continue changing the way Boston creates--and lives with--public art. These artists are working through a variety of issues that affect Boston and beyond, from climate change to affordable housing and social equality.
Like their predecessors, the 2019 cohort will receive hands-on coaching from concept to (permitted!) completion. These artists represent many different backgrounds and sensibilities and work in a range of media. Each is deeply dedicated to Boston and its neighborhoods, and is committed to sharing their work with the people across our city.
The Accelerator supports people, not just projects, equipping local artists with the skills they need to make meaningful public art for Boston audiences. The six artists comprising the 2019 cohort were among twenty-seven nominated by Boston-area curators and were selected by a panel of public art experts and practitioners including Karin Goodfellow, Ekua Holmes, Beth Kantrowitz, and Cher Krause Knight. We’re excited to accelerate the possibilities of public art in 2019!”
- Leah Triplett Harrington
Join Aaron Ellison and I at these upcoming events focused on Warming Warming and climate change action.
Novel Ecosystem Viewfinders, artist talk with David Buckley Borden and Aaron M Ellison
Le Laboratoire, 650 East Kendall Street, Cambridge, MA
More info:https://www.lelaboratoirecambridge.com/hemlockhospice
Meet the Artists On-site, one-on-one discussions with artists David Buckley Borden and Aaron M Ellison.
Harvard Science Center Plaza
1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA
Hemlock Hospice Documentary screening with introduction by David Buckley Borden
Picturing Consequences, a mixed-media projection installation by Mary Lewey and Avi Paul Weinstein
At Triple Decker Ecology exhibition
Somerville Museum
1 Westwood Rd, Somerville, MA
More info: http://www.somervillemuseum.org/
Environmental Art: reflection, provocation, and action, artist talk for educators with David Buckley Borden and Aaron M Ellison
Project Zero/Harvard Graduate School of Education
Longfellow Building, 4th floor
13 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA
More info to come
I always sign up for fun. It made me happy to create this new Hotel Studio Allston installation. The Land New England installation celebrates Boston landscapes ranging the Boston Harbor Islands to the Emerald Necklace with a spirited interior featuring prints, wallpaper supergraphics, and two dozen speculative-design sculptures ranging from "landy joy sticks" to "climate-change marshalling wands."
Hotel Studio Allston is located at 1234 Soldiers’ Field Road, Boston, MA. If interested in spending a night in Land New England, ask for the DBB Suite (RM 401).
It was an absolute pleasure to work with Liz, Emily, and Madeline of Isenberg Projects on this installation.
Working as a creative professional within academia has many benefits, including institutional support for publishing work. I am grateful for a number of upcoming publication opportunities focused on the collaborative Hemlock Hospice experience with Dr. Aaron Ellison, The first of several co-authored publications with Aaron was published this week in Sciart Magazine. The themed issue of Sciart Magazine features a variety of thought-provoking articles exploring how creative collaborations can have a positive impact on the practice of science. Read our article online here.
Warming Warning installation on Science Center Plaza, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
A new public art sculpture created by Harvard Forest Fellow David Buckley Borden and Harvard Forest Senior Ecologist Dr. Aaron Ellison in partnership with Harvard's Office of Sustainability, and Common Space will be on view at the Harvard University Science Center Plaza from Oct. 19 to Dec. 7, 2018.
This educational installation combines science-communication, art, and environmental design to communicate local and global climate change data.
The design represents climate change as a series of painted triangles ("deltas") constructed from ten foot long 4x6" hemlock timbers that were harvested and milled at the Harvard Forest. Shadows, moiré patterns, and heat-gradient color-spectrum vibrancy change as the 10.5 x 12 x 28’ work reflects the sun's arc, producing a work that will reward repeated visits.
When viewed from the side, the timbers reveal a wall of information about climate change: one side highlights the dramatic rise in global average temperatures since 1880. The other highlights potential warming futures. The sculpture leaves space at the end of the time series for more triangles to be added. Visitors will, in effect, become a part of the story of Earth's climate history and be encouraged to consider their vital role in its future.
The exhibit's opening event, called "Climate is Global, Change is Local," will be held Oct. 22, 4-5:30pm in Harvard's Cabot Science Library. The event is open to all, but particularly geared towards students. It is co-hosted by Harvard Forest and the Office for Sustainability and will include presentation by the artists, plus speakers from across Harvard's schools and centers (including the Graduate School of Education, Graduate School of Design, and Harvard College Conservation Society), who will describe their local work on climate and some pathways for students to get involved.
The Harvard Forest will host a public event from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday October 20, 2018, to explore species loss and encourage community action. A panel discussion and Q&A by experts on invasive species and human decision-making will augment guided tours of Hemlock Hospice, a field-based sculpture installation created by Harvard Forest Fellow David Buckley Borden. The new Hemlock Hospice documentary film will also premiere.
Doors will open for the Oct. 20 event at 10:00 a.m., and the first guided tour of Hemlock Hospice sculpture exhibition will begin at 10:15 a.m.
In a speaker program beginning at 12:00 p.m. in the Fisher Museum, scientists Dave Orwig, Laura Meyerson, and Valerie Pasquarella from Harvard Forest, the University of Rhode Island, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, respectively, will discuss the ecosystems we’re losing due to invasive species in New England, the impacts this loss has on our landscape and human well-being, the changes we can expect to see in Central Massachusetts, and the range of actions community members can take.
The panel discussion will be followed by the premiere of a new documentary film by Faizal Westcott, Devin Chaganis, Casey Keenan, David Buckley Borden, and Aaron Ellison, about hemlock loss in New England and the Hemlock Hospice exhibition. The film screening will be followed by a second guided tour of the art exhibition from 2:15 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. The Hemlock Hospice exhibit will remain on view at the Harvard Forest through November 18, 2018.
More event details available here.
NPR’s Living on Earth featured the Hemlock Hospice project today. Many thanks to Savannah Christiansen for taking the time to journey to the Harvard Forest to produce this thoughtful piece with Aaron Ellison and I. Listen to this radio program here.
I am delighted to read Sophie Kissinger’s review of the Hemlock Hospice project in the latest issue of the Boston Art Review. You can read the insightful review in print and now online. The BAR also has a sharp online event/happening listing and listserv. Sign up and get involved.
In the words of Boston Art News, “Boston Voyager is collecting artists like Pokemon.” I was recently interviewed as part of the Magazine’s “Thought-provoker” series. You can read the interview here.
Triple Decker Ecology explores urban environmental issues of Somerville, MA (past, present, and future). Curator Pennie Taylor presents an interdisciplinary installation by artist David Buckley Borden and collaborators that includes both local artifacts and new works inspired by the Somerville Museum’s historic collection. Project collaborators include: Kate Sokol, Mike D., Alyson Fletcher, Jack K. Byers, and Jackie Barry. Opening reception, Thursday, Oct 11, 6PM. Somerville Museum is located at 1 Westwood Rd, Somerville, MA 02143.
This summer I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Aaron Ellison, Faizal Westcott, Devin Chaganis, and Casey Keenan on a short documentary about the Hemlock Hospice project at Harvard Forest. The documentary will serve as the capstone communication piece for the year-long project and premiere on October 20th as part of the closing reception for the project. The closing reception will take place at the Harvard Forest and feature a full day of programming, including the release of the film. The Hemlock Hospice interpretive trail will be de-installed starting November 19th. For details on the closing reception, please visit the Harvard Forest event facebook page.
The next Hemlock Hospice talk will take place on the evening of November 7th at Le Laboratoire in Cambridge MA. This talk had been rescheduled from September 19th. Event details available here.
Hemlock Hospice: landscape ecology, art, and design, as science communication
Abstract:
This talk focuses on the intersection of ecology, art, and design as viewed through the lens of the Hemlock Hospice project. Hemlock Hospice is an, art-based interpretive trail conceived and developed by David Buckley Borden, Aaron M. Ellison, and their team of interdisciplinary collaborators. On view through mid-November 2018, this immersive site-specific science-communication project tells the story of the ongoing demise of the eastern hemlock tree at the hands (and mouth) of a tiny aphid-like insect, the hemlock wooly adelgid. While telling the story of the loss of eastern hemlock, the project addresses larger issues of climate change, human impact, and the future of New England forests.
The talk includes an overview of the Hemlock Hospice project from the complementary perspectives of science, art, and design, and also addresses the practical challenges of creating and realizing such interdisciplinary projects. Borden and Ellison will share their research-driven creative process, including challenges and lessons and highlight the team’s collaborative approach to science communication at the intersection of landscape, creativity, and cultural event.