event

Lost Waters Project: Virtual and Augmented Reality Event

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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

Earth Day Parade: Get Involved!

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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

 

Art Exhibition to Celebrate Ohio Soil Health Week

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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.

April Workshops: Plant Dye Bandanas with Time for Change

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April 2nd and April 3rd: Plant Dye Bandanas with Time for Change Week

 

Time for Change Week is an OSU Signature Event with the purpose of raising awareness for topics relating to sustainability on campus. The Living Art and Ecology Lab hosted two bandana dyeing workshops as part of this year’s festivities. During this event, students used resist techniques to dye bandanas with two historically significant dye plants: indigo and madder root. Enjoy some photos of the student work below!

Bandana reveals from the indigo vat

Madder root dye bath and a madder bandana over-dyed with indigo

Two madder bandanas: one treated with alum and acorn-based tannin solution; another with alum alone

 

Thank you to Time for Change organizers for including the LAE LAB in this years events!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April Workshops: Mycelium Sculpture with Visiting Artist Kate Klingbeil

up close look at inoculated sawdust
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April 5th: Mycelium Sculpture with Visiting Artist Kate Klingbeil

crowd of students gathered for mycelium workshop with visiting artist Kate Klingbeil

We had a wonderful crowd in attendance for Kate Klingbeil’s visiting artist talk and sculpture workshop! OSU staff, students, faculty, and community members gathered in the print shop during this event to learn the practice of sculpting with mycelium. Klingbeil, whose work often focuses on celebrating the unseen realm of soil, was drawn to explore this medium for creation as a way of working in partnership with the more than human world. These pieces are a collaboration between the fungi and the sculptor to realize the final product.

 

image of a student mold sculpture; filled with inoculated substrate and shaped from cardboard and other waste stream materials

 

Sculpting with mycelium involves the creation of a mold that can be filled with substrate (sawdust, rice bran, etc) inoculated in fungal spawn. As the fungi grow, their mycelium spreads throughout the substrate to act as a ‘glue’, resulting in a form that will hold its shape once removed from the mold. Local waste stream materials– like takeout containers, empty bottles, and cardboard boxes– were provided to participants to make mold shapes. Substrates included soybean chaff, sawdust, hemp hurds, straw, and more. Examples of a student mold (left) and one created by the artist (right) can be seen above.

 

image of pots and pans in a sink, all full of sterilized substrate materials for using to build mycelium sculptures (eg, sawdust, straw, soybean chaff, etc)
Photo of the ‘Substrate Bar’ full of different materials for growing mycelium and filling our molds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you to Kate for sharing this innovative artistic technique and letting us be part of your fungal network! Anyone interested in organizing a similar workshop with Kate should reach out to her at kateklingbeil@gmail.com. Participant photos from the event can also be submitted to this google form.

 

We have many people to thank for the execution of this wonderful event. Thank you to Jessie Horning and the Print Studio for providing space for this event to occur. Thank you to Natasha Woods and the Graduate Student Art Club for arranging this visiting artist. Thank you to the Feminist Research, Education, and Engagement (FREE) Center  for providing additional funding for workshop materials.
Thank you to the following local partners for donating substrate materials for students to use in this workshop as well: The Cannabis Museum in Athens, Ohio (hemp hurds), Woodcraft on Bethel Road (sawdust), and the McHale Soybean Breeding Program on Waterman Farm (soybean chaff).

In A Hotter House: Art Exhibition in the Biological Sciences Greenhouse

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flyer for the art show "in a hotter house". This show opens April 22nd, 2024 from 8:00pm to 10:00pm in the biological sciences greenhouse at Ohio State university

April 22nd, 2024 from 8:00pm to 10:00pm

Biological Sciences Greenhouse, 332 W. 12th Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43210. Directions.

In an age of rapidly changing climate, the greenhouse is not the only hothouse of our own making. The artists of this exhibition are united by the question, what solutions to our warming climate may we learn from paying attention to plants?

Not sure how to get to the greenhouse? The Lichen Likers will be leading a group from Hopkins Hall to the Greenhouse as part of a participatory pre-show performance titled Fungal Entanglement: A Lichen Journey. Arrive on the steps of Hopkins Hall at 7pm for a meandering walk that will lead you to the show.

Spring 2024 Art Exhibition: In A Hotter House

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In A Hotter House

An Earth Day art exhibition in a greenhouse on top of a parking garage.

The Biological Sciences Greenhouse mimics the warming effects of the Earth’s atmosphere to nurture a cornucopia of plant diversity and botanical research. On April 22nd from 8:00-10:00pm, it will also serve as a cultural hotbed to present an exhibition of phytophilic (plant-loving) art. This venue is uniquely situated atop a central parking garage on Ohio State University’s campus, carbon dioxide from the exhaust of humans and cars below drifting upwards to the plants who transform it into oxygen.

The Department of Art’s Living Art & Ecology Lab, partnered with resident artist Doosung Yoo, the Lichen Likers research group, eleven invited local artists, and this semester’s Art & Science course (co-taught by faculty members Amy Youngs and Iris Meier) cordially invite you to experience their artistic creations at this plant-human meeting ground. In an age of rapidly changing climate, the greenhouse is not the only hothouse of our own making. The artists of this exhibition* are united by the question, what solutions to our warming climate may we learn from paying attention to plants?

Address: Biological Sciences Greenhouse, 332 W. 12th Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43210. Directions.

Kate Klingbeil: Mycelium Sculpture Workshop and Artist Talk

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MYCELIUM SCULPTURE WORKSHOP & ARTIST TALK with KATE KLINGBEIL Build your own mycelium-based sculpture using found/recycled materials and local waste. Kate Klingbeil (b. 1990) is a visual artist predominately work- ing with painting, sculpture, video, and most recently, fungi. Through highlighting the connections between our psyches and Earth’s subterranean landscapes, Kate’s work builds on the foundation of the root systems and fungal networks that hold us together. She has recieved residency awards from Silver Art Projects, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Marble House Projects, The Arts/Industries program at John Michael Kohler Art Center, Yaddo, and ACRE. She has presented solo exhibitions with Steve Turner, Los An- geles. Hesse Flatow and at SPRING/BREAK, New York with Field Projects. Kate received a BFA in Printmaking from California College of the Arts in Oakland, CA in 2012. She currently resides in Milwaukee, WI, and is represented by Steve Turner in Los Angeles, CA. Presented by the Graduate Student Art Club, The Living Art Eco Lab & The Ohio State Center for Feminist Research, Education and Engagement (FREE Center) Friday, April 5th, 2024 4-7 pm Hopkins Hall Room 266 Print Shop Limited Capacity Please RSVP & direct questions to woods.986

Join Visiting Artist Kate Klingbeil in the Hopkins Hall Print Shop (Room 266) on April 5th, 2024 4:00-7:00pm to make your own sculpture using fungal mycelium and up-cycled materials! Please see the above flyer for more details, and RSVP to woods.986@osu.edu to attend (seats are limited). More information on the artist’s work can be found here or on her Instagram @k8klingbeil.

This event is made possible through the Graduate Student Art Club, the Living Art and Ecology Lab, and generous funding from The Ohio State Center for Feminist Research, Education, and Engagement (FREE Center).

Spring Phenology Walk Series

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Have you ever found yourself waiting impatiently for spring, only to look up and realize that it’s suddenly summer? If so, this walk series may be for you! Starting Thursday, February 29th, join the Living Art and Ecology Lab for afternoon walks along the Olentangy River Trail to notice and appreciate signs of spring. Sights of interest may include a range of seasonal wildflowers, migrating bird species, and various other fungi, flora and fauna. Walking groups will meet on the steps outside of Hopkins Hall at 11:45am and take the bus together to the St. John’s Arena stop, which is located adjacent to the Olentangy River Trail. From there we will have a free-form exploration of the trail with the goal of returning to the bus stop by 1:00pm. The main path of the Olentangy trail is flat and well-paved with unpaved side trails that we may explore depending on group interests and abilities. A limited number of binoculars will be available for participant use. To join us on one of these walks, please submit your interests to the sign-up links below:
Sign up forms for additional dates will be posted as the semester progresses. Any questions about this event series can be directed to the Living Art and Ecology Lab Coordinator Emma Kline at kline.434@osu.edu.