{"id":23251,"date":"2019-03-15T18:41:57","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23251"},"modified":"2019-03-15T18:42:08","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:42:08","slug":"science-and-art-combine-to-sound-environmental-alarm-bells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/science-and-art-combine-to-sound-environmental-alarm-bells\/","title":{"rendered":"Science and art combine to sound environmental alarm bells"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a citizen scientist for a conservation authority near\nLake Couchiching, Jennie Clark was tasked with documenting not only water\nquality, but the impacts of climate change on the surrounding area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Ms. Clark observed left a lasting impression, leaving\nher with the desire to do more \u2013 but it also left her with the big question of\nwhat can just one person do to have a lasting impact?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To answer that question, Ms. Clark went back to her\nroots, using her career as an artist to found the Simcoe Watershed Project, an\nartist collective focused on bringing creative minds together to use their\ntalents to underscore concern for the lands and water of the Lake Simcoe and\nLake Couchiching Watersheds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results of this collective, along with involvement\nfrom Lakehead University, can now be seen on the walls of the Aurora Cultural\nCentre in the new exhibition entitled \u201cWatershedsci\u201d, which opened Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watershedsci responds \u201cto the impact of environmental\nresearch documented by the dedicated scientists of Lakehead University, through\nartwork that responds to and honours the scientists\u2019 work,\u201d say curators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is a thought-provoking exhibition by 12\nartists working in a variety of media, including video installation, paintings\nand jewellery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis began as a group of artists interested in creating\nart that promoted the environmental health of the Lake Simcoe watershed and\nthat came following an introduction I had to The Ladies of the Lake,\u201d says Ms.\nClark, referring to a group of more than 100 women who took action to have a\npositive impact on Lake Simcoe, beginning with a \u2018cheeky\u2019 calendar to raise\nboth funds and awareness for the cause. \u201cI began to think about how I, as an\nartist, could make a difference. I brought a group of my friends together who\nwere interested in that and we started The Simcoe Watershed Art Project in\n2011, and we have had a whole series of exhibitions since.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lake Simcoe Watershed Art Project began to develop\nconnections to the scientific world shortly thereafter when one member of the\ncollective spotted an article in an Orillia newspaper highlighting research\nbeing done by Lakehead scientists that dovetailed with their concepts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They contacted Dr. Sreekumari Kurissery with information\nabout their project and found an instant connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe brought together a panel of scientists who presented\ntheir papers, findings, photographs, and general information to a group of\nartists that we had invited to participate in the project,\u201d Ms. Clark explains.\n\u201cThose artists were selected based on their professional skills as art-makers,\nall popular art-makers within Simcoe County living within the watershed, who\ncould relate to the findings the scientists were presenting. We wanted to keep\nit very, very local with artists working with the local university, showing at\na local venue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first show resulting from this partnership took place\nin Orillia, where it caught the attention of Clare Bolton, Gallery Manager for\nthe Aurora Cultural Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This version of the show, guest-curated by Judith Gibson-Vick,\nshowcases 12 participating artists including Ms. Clark, Peter Miehm, Karen\nWild, Roger Kerslake, Peter McEwen, Luci Dilkus and Heather Driver Kerslake,\nBewabon Shilling and Tanya Cunnington, Joanna McEwen and Anton Pickard, and\nSarah Uffelmann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJudith has managed to generate conversations between the\nart pieces and present them in an accessible way to the audience,\u201d says Ms.\nClark, paying special attention to an installation of several pieces of\nneedlework suspended from the ceiling of the Cultural Centre\u2019s Blue Gallery,\nwhich aims to highlight the growing problem of plastic and microfibres found\nsuspended in the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe talk about plastic bottles as being the most obvious\nproblem, but much of our clothing is made out of polyesters and plastics, and\nthey do not biodegrade; they just become part of the ecosystem and that is a\nvery important issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she looks ahead to a series of events associated with\nWatershedsci, including talks with the artists and participating scientists,\nMs. Clark says she hopes the dialogue between the works curated by Ms.\nGibson-Vick helps spur further dialogue across the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne measure of success is educational,\u201d says Ms. Clark.\n\u201cIf children can come through the exhibit, respond to it, and if it can\nencourage conversation between teachers and students about some of these issues\nin a fun and positive way so that kids start thinking about it, that is a form\nof success. It\u2019s also just stimulating a conversation about the subject, about\nenvironmental issues. It\u2019s very timely. We\u2019re all starting to realise that\nclimate change is happening and we\u2019re all starting to realise that\nsustainability is really, really important, taking care of the planet is really\nimportant, and getting those conversations going, even in a light-hearted way,\nis very important.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a citizen scientist for a conservation authority near Lake Couchiching, Jennie Clark was tasked with documenting not only water quality, but the impacts of climate change on the surrounding area. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019-03-14-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-631","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 13:05:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}