Getting to Know Algae:
Creating Artworks with Seaweed & Kelp
As the tide rises and falls along the coastlines, it brings forth seaweed, a type of multicellular algae, from sea to land and back again. Coastlines are ancestral sites shared by all living beings. They are thresholds in support of complex systems, buoyant gateways to places of kinship between all species in the ebb and flow of the sea. Art Professor Jennifer Parker explores the wrack as a shared space for research and creative practice.
As an artist Parker is recognized for her innovative work investigating issues between biology and technology, combining art, ecology, and design. Through multi-sensory and interdisciplinary collaborations, she engages scientific and creative practices to explore the sensorial world of humans and the more than human world of species living on the planet.
As an educator, Parker carves sites for collective engagement between disciplines. Facilitating, identifying, and determining the boundaries of complex, multi-dimensional space with the aim to develop (a sense of) community to encourage learning, and inform and develop the practice of its members. Her methods of inquiry build on lab and studio visits, literature reviews, and conversations with faculty and students across disciplines triggering a heuristic learning process to pursue creative research for exhibitions and publications.
The exhibit, on display at the Seymour Center during Salmon Week, will show the beauty of kelp and its importance to salmon. Free with Seymour Center admission.
