WILDLAND: Fire & Water - Artist & Collaborator Talk
Ethan Turpin's works are grounded in the natural cycles of wildfire, devastation, and recovery and regrowth. Turpin is a multi-media artist and fireline-trained, press-credentialed photographer. His collaborations include other artists and scientists at the UCSB Bren School, and works with the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council to provide educational programming about wildfires and our local landscape.
Ethan Turpin and Naomi Tague will present a lecture on their collaborations for WILDLAND. Naomi Tague is a researcher and professor of ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.
Earth system science is essential for understanding today’s changing environment. Earth system science is complex, requiring the integration of multiple lines of evidence from observation technologies, physical theory and computational data science. The complexity of this enterprise can be confusing, even alienating. At the same time, confronted with converging global concerns, artists are less content to operate within aesthetic pursuits and elite cultural dialogue, but need ways to access emerging content. Art/science collaborations can address both of these needs and help us make sense of a rapidly changing world. Ethan Turpin, a local Santa Barbara artist and Naomi Tague, an earth system scientist at the Bren School have been collaborating for the past decade. The current "Wildland" exhibit includes several pieces from the collaboration. Ethan and Naomi will talk about this collaboration - and more broadly about relinking of art and science to help make sense of our complex, changing environment and humanity’s relationship with it. We emphasize that art and science both seek to discover new ways of seeing and understanding and as such are natural collaborators. but, that it takes investing in listening and engaging in the creative process together.