Lost Waters Project: Virtual and Augmented Reality Event

A celebration of history & landscape!

Poster for Lost Waters Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Parade Event

Did you know that a stream used to run across the South Oval and alongside Mirror Lake? The Lost Waters project has been investigating the disappearance of Neil Run stream from this landscape all year, and will be sharing the results of this research through virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) on Earth Day 2025. Come learn more about our local landscape history, and see what this place might have looked like over 100 years ago through our virtual reality tent and story trail.

This event will connect with the Living Art and Ecology Lab’s 2025 Earth Day Parade at 4:30pm on the 22nd. We will be meeting on the South Oval behind hale Hall, following the path of old Neil Run from Mirror Lake to Iuka Ravine– more information on the parade can be found here.

Event Details

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025 from 1pm to 3pm

The virtual reality tent will be set up on Pomerene Hall Patio; the augmented reality story trail will start on the South Oval behind Hale Hall

For more information, contact Emma Kline at kline.434@osu.edu

Workshop: Lichen and Queer Ecological Bodies

Lichens & Queer Ecological Bodies Tuesday April 1st, 2025 Session 1: 2:30-3:15pm Artist talk in Hopkins Hall 180 (Emerging Technologies Studio/Hopkins Annex) Session 2: 3:30-4:30 Somatic/Movement-based practice on the Oval This 2-part workshop is a collaboration between artist Michael Morris and the Lichen Likers to explore queer ecological perspectives and experiences of embodiment that disrupt normative constructions of the body as bounded, separate, and impermeable. Michael J. Morris is a dance artist, astrologer, tarot reader, writer, and educator who holds a PhD in Dance Studies from The Ohio State University. Their choreographic and performance work draws influences from Japanese Butoh, ritual practices, and early formalist postmodern dance and has been presented at universities, galleries, community spaces, theaters, bars and nightclubs, films, and domestic spaces. This event is made possible through funding from the Global Art and Humanities Discovery Theme.

Event Details

Date: Tuesday April 1st, 2025

Session 1 Time/Location: 2:30-3:15pm Artist talk in Hopkins Hall 180 (Emerging Technologies Studio/Hopkins Annex) ; Session 2 Time/Location: 3:30-4:30 Somatic/Movement-based practice on the Oval

Description: This talk and movement-based workshop explore queer ecological perspectives and experiences of embodiment that disrupt normative constructions of the body as bounded, separate, and impermeable. We will discuss and practice strategies for developing a greater felt sense of our own bodies as well as how our felt sense of self expands or transforms through moving in and out of intentional relationships with other bodies—both human and more-than-human. Who and how else might we become as we traverse promiscuous embodied relations through our movement? What more becomes possible when we invite human and more-than-human others into our bodies through moving together? How might these experiences shape not only how we approach ourselves and one another, but also our collective movements and our relationship with a planet in crisis? No previous movement experience needed.

About the Hosts

Michael J. Morris is a dance artist, astrologer, tarot reader, writer, and educator who holds a PhD in Dance Studies from The Ohio State University. Their choreographic and performance work draws influences from Japanese Butoh, ritual practices, and early formalist postmodern dance and has been presented at universities, galleries, community spaces, theaters, bars and nightclubs, films, and domestic spaces.

Lichen Likers is a group of faculty, staff and students working in the Living Art and Ecology Lab at The Ohio State University. The Lichen Research and Art Project are learning with lichens and drawing inspiration from their symbiotic lifestyles.

This event is made possible through funding from the Global Art and Humanities Discovery Theme.

Earth Day Parade: Get Involved!

You are cordially invited to the Living Art and Ecology Lab’s 2025 Earth Day Parade. Join us in celebrating the Earth!

Flyer for our Earth Day Parade. All information on the flyer is also written out as text in the body of the blogpost

What: We are hosting a parade in honor of Earth Day and invite you to join us! Together with various classes, student organizations, and partners from across campus, the parade is composed of costumes, banners, and floats dedicated to the soil, air, and waters upon which we all depend for our shared existence. This event is a celebration of joy for everything that makes life on this floating blue marble possible!

When: April 22nd, 2025 at 4pm – see schedule details.

Where: Meet on the South Oval. Parade starts at 4:30, from the East end of Mirror Lake and moving towards Iuka Ravine.

How: For a simple way to join, show up on the South Oval wearing blue, green, or brown to represent the Earth. Costumes relating to the spirit of the event are also encouraged. Interested in building a float, carrying a banner, or coordinating involvement for your student org? We request that you submit an interest form here and read the guidelines enclosed.

Who: Current collaborators in this celebration include the Living Art & Ecology Lab’s Lichen Likers and Lost Waters research groups; SUSTAINs Living Community; Facilities, Operations, and Development; Planning, Architecture, and Real Estate, The Emerging Technology Studio; Knowlton School of Architecture; The Soil Culture Group; Art 5101 Eco Art Class; Art 3001 and 4503 Glass Classes; Design 4650 Collaborative Design Studio

Earth Day Art celebration website with more info

“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”  –Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

 

Wearable Sculpture Workshop with Alex Buchan

A hands on workshop brought to you by the Lichen Likers and led by Alex Buchan, MFA candidate at Ohio University • Sourcing waste-stream materials • incorporating live plants in wearables • sewing non-traditional materials • experimentation and play encouraged

Wednesday, March 19th from 4-6pm in Hopkins Hall room 358

As a symbiotic being, lichen’s fungal partner learns to collaborate with their green, photosynthetic partner. How can we practice collaborating closely with plants in their living form? Can we wear them without harming them? What do we take? What do we give?

Join our experimental, hands-on workshop with Alex Buchan, to explore making wearables with living plants. This workshop will include sewing with non-traditional and waste stream materials in addition to incorporating plants. Materials provided, though participants are welcome to bring their own fabrics or waste-stream items to incorporate as well. Play and experimentation encouraged!

 

About the Artist: Alex Buchan works as a prospector, excavating modern masculinity through sculptures and installations to present a caring, queer alternative that prioritizes empathy and resilience. His constructions of recontextualized objects and building materials combined with large scale prints offer windows into social webs that are often overlooked. As part of his ongoing symbiosis with the Lichen Likers, he focuses on ways to utilize waste stream materials to support life, with vestments that encourage us to think about the ways we interact with plants on a daily basis. He received his BFA in Sculpture from The Ohio State University, and is currently pursuing his MFA at Ohio University.

Kathy High and Jennifer Johung in Conversation

Join artist Kathy High and art historian Jennifer Johung for a conversation connecting art and biotechnology while considering the ethics of manipulating life.

Tuesday, February 25th 4:30p,-5:30pm in the Film and Video Theatre ( Wexner Center for the Arts)

Free Tickets and more information here

The biotechnology industry views life as a raw material—one to transform and engineer, or to simulate. This conversation will explore High’s art practice, which focuses on understanding the complexity and uncertainty of life and the closely held values that determine where we draw (and how we cross) the lines between the living, the dead, and the inanimate.

 
This dialogue is part of The Arts, Technology and Social Change series, a micro-residency program sponsored by Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme and  conceived by Ohio State’s Department of History of Art, Department of Art, Wexner Center for the Arts, and the Translational Data Analytics Institute. The residency program is a cross-department platform that involves public engagement on campus and around Columbus to explore questions on technology and social change in our contemporary moment.

Art Reception for ‘Microcosm’ by Andi Wolfe

Join us to celebrate the installation of Microcosm by Andi Wolfe in the Living Art and Ecology Lab (Hopkins 340) on January 30th, 2025 at 5:30pm. This artwork features ~168 glass protozoans (single-celled, eukaryotic microorganisms), which were initially created by Wolfe during an invited art & science residency with University of Wyoming’s Microbial Ecology Project. We will meet in the lab at 5:30pm to appreciate the sculpture indoors, then migrate outside to look at the artwork through the lab’s large windows using binoculars. This practice serves to emulate the experience of observing real protozoans through a microscope. Binoculars to share will be provided. Microcosm will remain on display in LAEL for one year.

About the Artist: Andi Wolfe spent her career as a botanist at The Ohio State University. During this time, she examined the natural world of plants from the macroscopic landscape to the molecular. Simultaneously, she explored art whenever she had time via sculptural woodturning, photography, painting, and glass. She is currently a Professor Emerita, allowing more time to focus on her artistic endeavors. Her work is in many private and public collections and has been featured in exhibits throughout the USA, including the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Honolulu Museum of Art, and Gallery of Wood Art in Minnesota. Examples of her wood art can be seen at www.AndiWolfe.com. Other explorations can be viewed on Instagram @andiwolfe.

Visiting Artist: Ruth Burke

Join us to welcome Ruth Burke to campus for a visiting artist talk on Wednesday, January 29th, 2025 from 4-5pm in Hopkins Hall 358.

Ruth Burke is an interdisciplinary artist whose socially-engaged practice straddles the fields of contemporary art, human-animal studies, and agriculture. From and of the Midwest, she lives and works in Central Illinois on lands that were once home to the Illini, Peoria and the Myaamia people, as well as many other Nations later displaced to the region by colonial encroachment and genocide. Burke’s work has focused on collaborating with animals since 2015, and her current focus is a series of large-scale native plant earthworks powered by animal traction.

Burke has published articles and creative work in various peer reviewed journals, presented her work at venues and institutions nationally and internationally, created earthworks in three US states, and received numerous grants from various entities. She was recently honored with the Harold Boyd Endowed Professorship (2024-2026) from the ISU Wonsook Kim School of Art, the ISU College Teaching Initiative Award (2024), and a 2024 Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (SARE) Partnership Award (2024), amongst other awards and residences.

Ruth Burke holds a BFA from the Ohio State University, an MFA  from the University of Michigan, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Video Art in the Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts, School of Art. She also runs DAP STUDIOS LLC, an art-and-agriculture business for hire on public artworks and small scale agricultural or garden projects.

 

 

Teatime with Soil Kin: Artist Talk with Amy Youngs

Stop by the Hopkins Hall Lobby on Thursday, November 14th from 2:30-3:30pm for teatime with OSU professor Amy Youngs and her magnificent worm bin. During this event, we will both learn about and participate in the circle of soil life by hearing Amy talk about her artistic practice with soil creatures, and offering our teabags to the worm bin as food. Teas and cups will be provided. This event will be occurring concurrently with the Ohio Soil Health Week Exhibition, Those Who Feed Us, located in the Hopkins Lobby as well.

Microbial Fuel Cell Workshop with Ken Rinaldo on November 15th

 

Academy Emeritus Professor Ken Rinaldo will lead a workshop on making a microbial a fuel cell in the Living Art and Ecology Lab in the Department of Art; November 15 2PM-4PM, room #340 Hopkins Hall, for soil week. In this workshop Rinaldo will present artists, and architects that have employed microbial fuel cells (MFCs) into their creative work. He will review theories of how Microbial Fuel Cells function, offering hope for a future powered by microbes. Together the attendees will create their own MFC fuel cells using living soil. In this two-hour workshop they measure voltages of their MFCs, using multimeters while exploring the promise for green energy technologies. All attendees must bring two sealable plastic containers for their MFC & other materials will be provided. No experience is necessary. Seats will be limited to the first 14 attendees.

About the artist:

Ken Rinaldo is internationally recognized for interactive bio robotic art installations and moving image works. Rinaldo’s work develops hybrid ecologies with humans, machines, plants, and animals, by constructing idealized social, biological, and machine symbionts. His work appears in 100s of books and art reviews, traveling to over 35 countries, and in private and museum collections. https://www.kenrinaldo.com/

 

 

 

Art Exhibition to Celebrate Ohio Soil Health Week

 

Those Who Feed Us An Art Exhibition in Celebration of Ohio Soil Health Week Presented by the Living Art and Ecology Lab Invited Artists: Marcia Armstrong, Ken Rinaldo, Mandy Darrington, Amy Youngs, David King, Alena Sun, Brian Trelegan Juried Artists: Adelaine Muth, Eve Warnock and Pelham Johnston (OBLSK Interactive), Dr. Kim Landsbergen, Dr. Janette Knowles, Raman Ebrahimi, Thomas Ellsworth, Dr. Daniel Gingerich, Dr. Parinaz Naghizadeh, Kyoung Swearingen, Scott Swearingen, Dr. Robyn Wilson November 13th-18th Reception: Nov. 13 4:30-7:00 pm Hopkins Hall Lobby and Project Space (First Floor) Related events: 11/ 14 – Tea Time with Soil Kin: Artist Talk with Amy Youngs (2:30-3:30pm, Hopkins Lobby) 11/15 – Microbial Fuel Cell Workshop with Ken Rinaldo (2:00-4:00pm, Hopkins 340, Seats Limited)

Join us in celebration of the first Ohio Soil Health Week at this short exhibition of soil-centered artwork! The reception for this show will be held on November 13th, 4:30-7:00pm in the Hopkins Hall Lobby and adjoining Project Space (128 N Oval Mall Columbus OH 43210, first floor). More information on Ohio Soil Health Week and other events occurring for this celebration can be found at the official OSHW Website.

See documentation of the exhibition.