In opposition to the backdrop of biodiversity loss and local weather change, right this moment, greater than ever, it’s very important that individuals have alternatives to expertise and develop relationships with native ecosystems and species. A World in our Streams is a site-specific sculptural challenge by artist Rebecca Schultz, designed to make vital connections between individuals and place, relationships that are particularly wanted by many individuals at this second.
Rebecca Schultz’ sculptures are impressed by the kinds and supplies utilized by Indigenous peoples to construct conventional fish traps, together with Hester-Dandy substrate samplers, a instrument used to gather macroinvertebrate samples from freshwater. Schultz’ compelling tackle these kinds are exhibited in Tookany Creek, in Excessive Faculty Park, Elkins Park, PA. A World in Our Streams combines artistic artworks and conservation science to discover the dynamic habitat of aquatic macroinvertebrates.
Jeanne Dodds, Endangered Species Coalition Artistic Engagement Director, shares a dialog with Rebecca Schultz about her artistic challenge A World in our Stream, and the way this challenge suits into her bigger artistic follow supporting biodiversity conservation.
Jeanne Dodds: What are aquatic macroinvertebrates, anyhow? What makes them such fascinating and ecologically important species? And amazingly, some macroinvertebrates are pollinators…. inform us how that works!
Rebecca Schultz: Macroinvertebrates are animals and not using a spine that you may see with out utilizing a microscope or magnifying glass. This contains insect larvae–reminiscent of dragonflies, damselflies, stoneflies, and mayflies–who spend extra of their lives within the water than they do on land. Many flies reside solely weeks, days, and even minutes after they emerge from the water as adults–they don’t have mouth components to eat–and so they focus totally on reproducing earlier than they die. Freshwater snails, worms, and crustaceans like crayfish and their smaller cousin known as scuds are additionally macroinvertebrates.
One of many vital issues about macroinvertebrates is that they’re glorious bioindicators. They assist us to evaluate the well being of a water physique, as a result of they reside most of their life within the stream and totally different ones are kind of delicate to air pollution. So if you happen to discover sure species–for instance, caddisflies, which I discovered within the stretch of Tookany Creek the place I put in my sculpture–which might be very delicate to air pollution. So their presence signifies that the creek is wholesome. The opposite factor about macroinvertebrates is that some–just like the stonefly–are pollinators, or they’re meals for different pollinators, reminiscent of hummingbirds. Briefly, they’re a critically vital a part of watershed ecosystems.
JD: Why do you suppose it’s vital to acknowledge and take note of much less well-known species, reminiscent of macroinvertebrates?
RS: I contemplate myself fairly educated in regards to the pure world and native ecosystems, however I didn’t know something about macroinvertebrates till I took the coaching on them. This lack of awareness was mirrored within the viewers for my artist speak–so many individuals got here as much as me afterwards and thanked me for elevating consciousness about these creatures that almost all of them have by no means thought of.
I believe this consciousness is especially vital as a result of bugs are a vital element of our ecosystems. They make up over two-thirds of the world’s 1.5 million identified animal species, and present estimates point out that 40% of insect species are in decline, and a 3rd are endangered. Habitat loss, the usage of pesticides and local weather change are probably the most important threats. So studying about macroinvertebrates is step one to being motivated to guard their habitat.
Picture caption: Rebecca Schultz delivering her Artist Stroll and Speak to attendees at Excessive Faculty Park, for the opening of the A World in Our Streams set up
JD: How did you make the connection between your artistic follow and themes of macroinvertebrate habitat in your present challenge, A World in Our Streams?
RS: For a lot of years, the impetus for my artistic work has been to assist restore the connection between us people and the more-than-human world by reconnecting us with the ecosystems that encompass us. I consider that doing so is vital to our collective survival within the face of the local weather and biodiversity crises.
Watersheds have developed because the ecosystems I’m notably curious about–they’re the essence of what scientists are more and more calling the vital zone, the place rock, water, vegetation, fungi, and–primarily based on newer science, microbes–work together with one another to create the inspiration for all times. And, the place I reside, our environmental challenges middle on water–the way to adapt to heavier rainfall and stormwater runoff, mixed sewer overflow, and flooding as a result of heavier rainfall. It’s vital to me to have some baseline scientific information of the ecosystems I work with, so in 2022 I grew to become a streamkeeper with the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership (TTF). I monitor a bit of Tookany Creek as soon as a month, and thru that work have attended trainings to raised perceive the way to assess the well being of watersheds. I used to be supplied the chance to get licensed as a Save Our Streams monitor, which entailed studying the way to pattern and establish macroinvertebrates. And I grew to become actually fascinated with them!
JD: How did you develop the connection between your paintings and the placement of Excessive Faculty Park and Tookany Creek? Why and the way is that this place particularly vital to your work?
RS: I moved to this space in 2016, after 20 years of residing within the San Francisco Bay Space, the place the regional parks have been one among my favourite locations to spend time. Excessive Faculty Park is a 10-minute stroll from my residence, and whereas it’s small, it’s mighty! For thirty years, our neighbors have labored diligently to revive numerous native ecosystems, from a meadow to woodlands, to the stretch of Tookany Creek that runs by means of the Park. It’s such a particular place.
Within the final 8 years, I’ve realized a lot about native ecosystems–a lot of that from the relationships I’ve constructed with native environmental organizations, like Pals of Excessive Faculty Park and the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership (TTF). Tookany Creek winds by means of Cheltenham Township on its technique to the Delaware River; by means of my volunteering as a streamkeeper and the continued evolution of my follow, I’ve change into increasingly linked to this panorama. A lot so, that when my stepson handed away in January, our household planted a tree for him in Excessive Faculty Park. All of us go to the tree–an American Persimmon–frequently. It has change into a web site of solace for us, within the face of profound grief.
JD: Please inform us a bit extra about your creative follow, particularly, your earlier initiatives at Excessive Faculty Park involving watersheds and soils.
RS: About ten years in the past, I re-focused my artistic follow on visible artwork, after a long time of constructing theater and efficiency artwork. On the identical time, I used to be turning into extra conscious of the dimensions of the intertwined local weather and biodiversity crises, and needed my work to be a response. As I grew to become extra curious about artwork and ecology, I needed to begin making outside installations with pure supplies. In 2020, throughout covid, I requested Cynthia Blackwood, the park supervisor, if I might do some installations in Excessive Faculty Park. I used to be very grateful to have the chance to experiment on this approach. The next yr, my pal and fellow artist Julia Approach, who was on the Pals of Excessive Faculty Park board, began a summer season outside artwork program. I collaborated with Brenda Howell on the piece Stroll the Inexperienced Path, which created a pathway by means of the native meadow, with signage in regards to the widespread, latin, and Lenape names of medicinal vegetation that have been rising there. In 2023, my community-engaged, participatory artwork and neighborhood science challenge Mapping Our Watershed was additionally a part of the summer season sequence.
Additionally in 2023, Cynthia was within the course of of making a “stumpery” within the Park, and requested me if I’d make a stump sculpture with items of bushes that had been reduce down. Tree stumps and fallen bushes are the location of wealthy ecosystems, together with vegetation, mosses, lichen, fungi, and bugs. As soon as I had completed the piece, Cynthia put native vegetation in round it. I go to the stump sculpture each single time I’m on the park, as a result of it’s always altering and evolving. It’s now a collaboration with hundreds of different residing issues, what I name my more-than-human relations. This piece impressed me to need to create extra sculptural habitat, and led me to A World in Our Streams.
JD: What do you hope that audiences and contributors engaged with this challenge take away from their experiences with the set up and macroinvertebrates?
RS: I hope they achieve a higher understanding of, and appreciation for, aquatic macroinvertebrates, in order that they’re extra motivated to preserve and defend them as an important a part of our watersheds. In Cheltenham Township, water is one among our most urgent environmental points–how we are going to adapt to growing heavy rainfall and the ensuing stormwater runoff, and the way we are going to defend the biodiversity that retains our watersheds wholesome in order that they’re extra resilient. My work is grounded by an intent so superbly captured by Senegalese environmentalist Baba Dioum: “In the long run we are going to preserve solely what we love; we are going to love solely what we perceive; and we are going to perceive solely what we’re taught.”
I additionally need audiences to grasp that artwork is a vital car for imagining and developing the world we would like, a world the place we acknowledge and step into our function as part of ecosystems, not separate from it. I used to be in France not too long ago, and had the unimaginable expertise of seeing cave work that have been made 27,000 years in the past. Our ancestors had quick and onerous lives, however they nonetheless made artwork. It’s important to our humanity.
JD: Is there anything in regards to the challenge you’d wish to share with the ESC viewers?
RS: This challenge has been a lesson in resilience and adaptability. I put in three sculptures woven from willow branches, impressed by the types of indigenous fish traps, in Tookany Creek the day earlier than my artist speak. I additionally put two sculptures impressed by Hester Dendy macroinvertebrate samplers into the stream, tied to cinder blocks. That night time, there was a storm the place we had almost an inch of rain in an hour and 35 mph wind gusts. I got here again the following morning, and the woven sculptures have been nearly utterly destroyed. One of many Hester Dendys was nowhere to be discovered. Water is extraordinarily highly effective. I shortly rebuilt two woven kinds, which might be shorter and extra densely woven than the primary set, and put in them within the creek. It’s now been greater than two weeks, and so they’re doing okay. They’re really gathering leaves and different pure particles, which is an efficient factor. They’re evolving in collaboration with the creek. On August twenty fourth, I’ll co-facilitate a workshop with my pal and collaborator Ryan Neuman from TTF, the place we are going to pattern macroinvertebrates from the sculptures and see what we discover!
A World in Our Streams exhibit is sponsored by the Endangered Species Coalition Pollinator Protectors marketing campaign, in collaboration with Pals of Excessive Faculty Park.
Picture credit: @jwayprojects and @djibrinemainassara
