Who am I to interpret nature through art? I am nobody really, a taught scientist, an indigenous woman, an artist. There are many reasons to listen to a professional artist talk about their craft, to learn how to create yourself, to gain more information on why they created it or how. But why listen to just a regular person’s interpretation of art? In the past, when you have listened to a professional in any field talk about their specialty, it is very precise. They know everything about that one specific idea. Whether you are listening to a professional artist, historian, or scientist, the specificity can be easy to overlook, and you can often come away from that experience wondering what the point of it was. The idea of interpretation, however, is not to be specific but to see the bigger picture. To look at a piece of art for the first time and wonder what it means, how the person was feeling when they made it, how they connect to it or what else it might connect to. That is interpretation. So, a regular person’s point of view might be exactly what it takes to interpret art or anything for that matter.
Art has been apart of this world for as long as we have. We have created many beautiful things in this world, inspired by nature. You may be thinking ‘not all art is inspired by nature’. You are wrong. Every single thing humans have created, has been inspired and made through means provided by the Earth. If you don’t believe me, I urge you to take this as a challenge. To try and think of one idea/creation/invention that has not originated from this Earth. We humans, tend to forget about the Earth as modern life envelopes us and takes our attention with its haste and relentlessness. Using art to enlighten our lives and add a little more beauty to this ever-developing world. We have always used art to find our way back to a time or moment when something was beautiful. In crises, we have used art to bring hope to our people. After colonization, there was a boom of indigenous art produced to help my people heal and remember a time of joy (art that was later used by colonists to develop tourist gift shop ideas). Art was used to revitalize our culture in a time of complete social and economic crisis; when there was no hope left. Art is in many ways our most pure form of expression and communication. It cannot be muddled, or deceitful and manipulative with tricky wording. It can only be interpreted. There is a reason we say a picture is worth a thousand words.
Indigenous art was often inspired by communication with spirits or animals. You can see below, a picture of a man in communication with a serpent. When I look at the picture, I see two beings, a snake, and a man. The snake looks scary, and the man looks worried but not terrified, maybe just startled. The man looks like he is being scolded by the snake for something. The snake has two heads, one angry head and one nice, but both look scared as well. The man and snake are connected by tendrils and two circles. The circle above the beings looks like the sun. The one circle which is between the two beings, is the same colour as the body of the man and the heads of the snake. This makes me feel like the circle is also a body or head of something. Or maybe an egg/offspring! This makes me feel like the picture is about how we can run into conflicts with other beings when we are trying to protect the things we care about, such as our offspring. But the beings will always be connected for as long as they share the same sun (or Earth).
Artist: Norval Morrisseau.
Our connection to other beings and nature is as important to recognize today as it was then. Art is interpreted in many ways and there are no right answers. What I interpret, may not be what you interpret, but that does not mean it is any less right or wrong. As a scientist, I am sure most of my colleagues and I have been in the same position of doubting the quality of information received from the social studies. Maybe even looking down upon the field, as we have been taught, because the information obtained from these sources is deemed, ‘inaccurate’. However, I invite you to find one thing from the picture above that is not an accurate portrayal. Art is used to try and capture the accuracy of a situation. Now, if you can remember the last journal article you read, think about how much accurate information you received.
The last peer-reviewed journal article I read was Factors influencing reproductive success in male white-tailed deer. Normally, I’d read the abstract first and then try to find the specific information I’m looking for within the paper. I’m sure many of you are practiced at this. When I get to the methods, my brain goes on autopilot looking for the correct information so I can save time and not have to read the entire thing. My brain is so busy scouring for the information needed for my paper, that I overlook the bigger picture of the paper. Of all of it really. Today, I read the whole paper carefully and when I got to the methods section, I started crying. The methods used to capture ‘adult’ deer (greater than 6 months old) in this study, were to chemically immobilize sighted deer within Auburn University’s Deer Research Facility. From October to July (9 months of the year), from 2007-2014 they gathered data. Methods for data collection included ear tagging (3-digit number used for identification), freeze branding (using an extremely cold iron to cold-burn a symbol into the skin for identification), ear notching (taking a triangular slice from the edge of the ear for genetic analysis), vaginal implant transmitters (facilitates the capture of a new-born fawn).
So, to reiterate, this population of deer (which have already been captured within a facility) spent 9 months of the year, over 7 years, living in terror for the means of science. To learn more about a species, we put them in a state of fear and agitation, we come into their home and disregard the impact we left because it was justified by science, we create a disturbance so large within the ecosystem and then publish the information as if it is an accurate representation of how that species’ lives their life. How can we believe that information is correct when just by invading a population’s territory, we have changed their natural behaviours? In a world that is constantly evolving, how are we so arrogant to believe we hold all the answers? If the journal article was actually a picture instead, what would it look like?
I have changed the way I see science since I have been at the University of Guelph. I am a fourth-year student in the wildlife biology and conservation program. I have spent a lot of time listening to professors and studying the content, as I am sure you have as well, and what I have taken away from it is, we know nothing about wildlife and a lot about conservation. Wildlife and nature are all around us. Nature is not a place you can go, it is everywhere. Conserving it in a park or zoo, has not been working for us. Can’t you see that? I implore you to take a step back and try to look at the bigger picture.
- Why are we trying to conserve species, trying to limit wildlife, when we have been told for years that biodiversity is decreasing? Why would we not instead spend time finding ways to increase wildlife found within our nature-lacking areas such as cities?
- How many individuals are released from these conservation initiatives? How many of them survive once they’ve been released?
- We have been told for years that large agricultural practices are non-sustainable, so why are we not trying to increase local farming initiatives and hunting practices, and dispelling the large agricultural industry?
- We have been told climate change is an issue for years, yet we are still trying to use up all the fossil fuels and mining millions of tons of lithium to create electric vehicles (another unsustainable way of travel)
- The pandemic keeps producing new variants and spreads around the world as people continue to travel
After reading these questions, try and look at this world as a whole. With all of these problems interlacing together. Now try and come up with solutions to these questions. What answers did you come up with?
We are running out of time, and nobody is doing anything about it. We’ve been faced with the facts, but we are refusing to listen for it is a harsh reality. Things are going to change. There is no doubt about that, but will we listen before that change is for the worst? It is our generations turn to shape this world. We can mould it into anything we want with effort and time. We need to make sure the upcoming change is for the better, even if that means sacrificing our modern lifestyle. The time for passively waiting by needs to come to an end. Action is our only option, for our children’s sake, I hope we are up to it.
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