{"id":49195,"date":"2022-09-22T14:30:10","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T18:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/?p=49195"},"modified":"2025-06-27T12:29:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T16:29:06","slug":"artists-and-scientists-that-co-create-regenerative-projects-in-citiesyes-please-but-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/2022\/09\/22\/artists-and-scientists-that-co-create-regenerative-projects-in-citiesyes-please-but-how\/","title":{"rendered":"Artists and scientists that co-create regenerative projects in cities?
Yes, please. But how?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authors in This Roundtable<\/h3>\n
Funmi Adeniyi, Cape Town<\/a>
\nWe aren\u2019t only scientists or artists \u2014 we are translators. We, particularly when talking about sustainable urbanisation and regeneration, need to queer this idea of who is “allowed” to express creativity or provide solutions, and must support to develop more linkages between and across these different ways of being.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Madhur Anand, Guelph<\/a>
\nIn my poetry, I have confront head on many scientific topics and some of my own ecological research through various forms, including found poems from my own scientific articles.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Eduardo Blanco, Senlis<\/a>
\nAs a scientist, I am happy to systematise this information in graphics, tables, and other cartesian representations. However, it is not the only way to represent it and definitely not the more accessible. So here is the first opportunity: to use art to create a shared and collaborative understanding of place. <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Carmen Bouyer, Paris<\/a>
\nIt\u2019s striking how artists and scientists are complementary to each other’s way of relating to the world. They possess a sort of yin and yang polarity that can allow the weaving of the emotional with the practical, the ephemeral with the systematic, the unique with the replicable, the subjective with the objective, the intuitive with the rational.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Lindsay Campbell, New York<\/a>
\nThere are benefits to bringing together multiple perspectives, to tackle the truly wicked problems that we haven\u2019t been able to solve with narrow, disciplinary solutions.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Paul Currie, Cape Town<\/a>
\nIn African cities, the arts and the sciences were not always separated. Art was part of science; science was part of art \u2013 the ways of understanding and making meaning of our environment made use of both scientific and artistic process.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Edith de Guzman, Los Angeles<\/a>
\nCombined, art and science can deliver a one-two punch of fact and emotion \u2014 leaving the viewer\/visitor\/participant to complete the exchange by reaching a deepened understanding, a change of heart or mind, or better yet, being moved to take action.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Chris Fremantle, Ayrshire<\/a>
\nIf we want more co-creative collaborative work to transform cities, then we need ways to talk about success that are useful to artists and scientists and also environment managers and policymakers as well as to community groups and elected representatives. All of them.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
David Haley, Ulverston<\/a>
\nCo-created projects by artists and scientists may be interesting, but a co-learning dialogue with diverse, local people and other-than-humans, like pigeons, may be more insightful and creative.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Sarah Hines, Washington<\/a>
\nSo many of our human needs and behaviors, when magnified times 7 billion or more, seem to conflict with creating benefits for nature. But this is precisely where the well-defined problem, a well-loved place, or a provocative piece of art or performance or data, can advance the conversation and practice.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Ito Keitaro, Munakata<\/a>
\nWe considered how to implement Green Infrastructure in the local community to provide ecosystem services for local residents. Preserving areas such as wildlife habitats and spaces where children can play is a crucial issue nowadays.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Dave Kendal, Hobart<\/a>
\nWork as individuals and in small groups, rather than the large groups and teams that dominate contemporary science. This allows a few voices to explore the limits of their thinking, rather than retreating to the shared, consensus, agreement of most science.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Christopher Kennedy, New York<\/a>
\nRegenerative artworks hold immense promise but also present a cautionary tale. They highlight a common friction many artists encounter when attempting to emulate ecological processes while also experimenting with aesthetic forms and concepts.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Nikki Lindt, New York<\/a>
\nWe need this untapped laden potential of collaboration to ignite new ideas, well-being, new experiences, new perspectives, and needed solutions.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Patrick Lydon, Daejeon<\/a>
\nThough science and art both give us reason to wonder and imagine and to move closer to nature-truth, both are also capable of missing the mark if operating alone. If science writes the truth of what we can see, then art undulates truth in the spaces between. In weaving together these stories we will find how to move forward.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
David Maddox, New York<\/a>
\nWe are all part of the elephant. Let’s act like it.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Mary Miss, New York<\/a>
\nMaybe the easier part of the question is how artists and scientists can co-create projects: get two curious open-minded people from different fields who are willing to take a serious look at vocabulary and give them time to explore each other\u2019s ways of seeing and thinking.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Mary O’Brien, San Francisco Bay Area<\/a>
\nFor art to remediate the damage humans have done to our own environments will require specific knowledge, as well as emotion; aesthetics as well as solid data\u2014the kind of collaboration that many damaged rivers and lands could use right now.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Marguerite Perret, Topeka<\/a>
\nWe are all time travelers, but if we employ creativity and science as essential tools for personal and environmental resilience, we can embrace a sense of purpose-based optimism in the face of the many challenges we face in the present and future.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Cristi\u00e1n Pietrapiana, New York<\/a>
\nMaybe scientists are the best-qualified ones to identify a problem and then brainstorm with artists and participating audiences on possible viable solutions.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Baixo Ribeiro, S\u00e3o Paulo<\/a>
\nWe realized that we could go beyond simple artistic interventions in schools if we opened a creative dialogue with teachers and the entire school community. We ended up developing a methodology that combines art and science in the solution to one of the biggest problems of Brazilian education, which is school dropouts due to a lack of student\u2019s interest in their schools. | Percebemos que pod\u00edamos ir al\u00e9m das interven\u00e7\u00f5es art\u00edsticas pontuais nas escolas, se abr\u00edssemos um di\u00e1logo criativo com os professores e toda a comunidade escolar: funcion\u00e1rios, pais, vizinhos das escolas, agentes culturais do bairro e assim por diante.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Eric Sanderson, New York\u00a0<\/a>
\nScientists and artists need to help people accommodate the change that is already here, and the more dramatic and consequential change yet to come. We need to change minds to change cities.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Wendy Wischer, Salt Lake City <\/a>
\nAs an Eco Artist, I am compelled to focus on environmental issues; finding pathways, and creating experiences, that translate data into personal meaning in hopes of finding impactful ways to connect people more deeply with the environments they live in and with each other.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Ania Upstill, New York <\/a>
\nWe listen to the rich narratives of scientific knowledge and help translate them into words or images that invite passersby to learn these stories, to understand more of the land and sea around them; we arrange for a mural or poetry to be placed on the outside of the wall that is begging for decoration, ask for a storytelling bench for where we have seen people looking for a place to sit.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Introduction<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
Carmen Bouyer<\/div>\n
\n

about the writer
\n Carmen Bouyer<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n

Carmen Bouyer is a French environmental artist and designer based in Paris. <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

\n
David Maddox<\/div>\n
\n

about the writer
\n David Maddox<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n

David loves urban spaces and nature. He loves creativity and collaboration. He loves theatre and music. In his life and work he has practiced in all of these as, in various moments, a scientist, a climate change researcher, a land steward, an ecological practitioner, composer, a playwright, a musician, an actor, and a theatre director. David's dad told him once that he needed a back up plan, something to \"fall back on\". So he bought a tuba.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n<\/div>\n

Let\u2019s embody our wish for flourishing urban nature in the very fabric of our projects by embodying diversity within our teams. <\/blockquote><\/figure><\/span><\/p>\n

Storytelling about humans and nature\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We know that different ways of knowing produce different insights. Scientific knowledge produces key knowledge about urban social and natural systems and how they might be sustainable and regenerative. Similarly, artistic practice and expression yields its own knowledge, which often connects us to deeper emotional paths of understanding. Both are approaches to storytelling about humans, nature, and how they connect to each other. It is important to acknowledge that they share some methods (e.g., curiosity) but not all.<\/p>\n

Download a PDF of the entire 82-page roundtable text.<\/a><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n

What if scientists and artists worked together to co-create knowledge? This could be in active co-production, or even just in sharing ideas about shared objects of inquiry. This kind of sharing happens relatively rarely \u2014 most people in art and science tend to work squarely within their disciplines \u2014 but more and more of us are trying to create useful spaces in which artists and scientists interact.<\/p>\n

What new territory of understanding might we encounter with such interactions? We have explored these ideas before at TNOC, in roundtables<\/a> and also in our art-leaning\u00a0exhibits<\/a>, which routinely feature artists and scientists side-by-side.<\/p>\n

In this roundtable, we ask a collection of scientists and artists, each actively engaged in some form of art-science collaboration, how they approach it. Some are artists, some are scientists, some are both. All are interested in exploring a fizzy boundary of expression at the intersection of artistic and scientific approaches to storytelling. Key to the question of this roundtable: can we be changed by interactions with other ways of knowing, changes in ways that would enrich both useful knowledge and our interdisciplinary practice?<\/p>\n

A cohabitation of multiple worlds<\/b><\/p>\n

There are many layers to regenerative practices as we may understand them, ranging from the personal to the collective, from the social to the environmental, all interconnected. We envision coalitions that bring together artists and scientists, along with technicians, gardeners, citizen’s groups, and more<\/span> to regenerate<\/span> life systems in the urban landscape. We see projects that restore, protect or facilitate the expansion of urban forests, urban rivers and wetlands, bettering the quality of water, air and soil, as well as plants\/animal\/fungi habitats. In turn, urbanites are being restored, protected, and expanded in their possibilities of expression as all of those lifeforms return to their daily awareness and experience in cities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Embodying diversity as a group<\/b><\/p>\n

As land care and ecosystem regeneration become increasingly paramount, more artists and scientists and practitioners are dedicating their efforts to participating in such practices together. For example, in France what seems to be a small movement is set to grow as we remember that collaboration between species is a matter of survival and wellbeing for humans and all other life forms. We are one, with multiple shapes. In the same logic, collaboration between knowledge bases is crucial to addressing problems that haven\u2019t been solved by monolithic thinking, and may have been created by it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s embody our wish for flourishing urban biodiversity in the very fabric of our projects by embodying diversity within our teams. As we practice combining various ways of being and forms of intelligence, we become more flexible, aware, and open. We become more likely to understand, respect, and learn from the intelligence of other people, but also of plants, animals, soils, and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n

Lindsay Campbell<\/h3>\n
\n
Lindsay Campbell<\/div>\n
\n

about the writer
\n Lindsay Campbell<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n

Lindsay K. Campbell is a human geographer affiliated with The Nature of Cities and CUNY Graduate Center, Department of Earth and Environmental Science. Her current research explores the dynamics of environmental governance, civic engagement, and natural resource stewardship.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

There are benefits to bringing together multiple perspectives, to tackle the truly wicked problems that we haven\u2019t been able to solve with narrow, disciplinary solutions.<\/blockquote><\/figure>\n

Throughout my career as a research social scientist with the USDA Forest Service, I have sought out engaging with the arts as another \u201cway of knowing\u201d that is complementary to scientific knowledge \u2014 both of which have relevance to the work of land management and environmental stewardship.<\/p>\n

Specifically, I co-lead the Urban Field Station Collaborative Arts Program<\/a> (UFS Arts) with The Nature of Cities and a network of partners. With UFS Arts, we:<\/p>\n