I've been given the amazing opportunity to go as a resident artist on a scientific research cruise to the Pacific Arctic with Bob Pickart, an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution! I’ll be going as part of Bob’s outreach team to help get people who don’t necessarily follow science excited about oceanography through art, writing, videos, etc. The outreach team includes Ben Harden, the outreach coordinator who will also be producing audio/video content for the website; Dallas Murphy, a writer; Amanda Kowalski, a photographer and videographer; Jody Spurling, a modern dancer who will be dancing on the sea ice and documenting it; and me as a visual artist. A historic multimedia outreach effort!
The
ship we’re going on is the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy, a CG icebreaker
dedicated to ocean science in the arctic. The crew will be CG and the
science/civilian party will include groups from Woods Hole, Stanford
University, New Hampshire, and Canada. There will be somewhere around 140
people onboard total! I’ve never been to sea before so I’m very curious about
life onboard a ship, especially a Coast Guard ship. Here is what I’ve learned
about the Healy so far based on a highly scientific poll of Coffee O customers
wearing Healy sweatshirts:
It’s
huge
There’s
a store where you can buy official Healy sweatshirts and travel mugs
The
food is mediocre
They
may or may not inspect your bed every morning
There
is a decent chance of seeing polar bears!
To get on the Healy I
fly to Anchorage first and get to spend a week on vacation visiting Libby and
Finn Dog in Girdwood and playing in the Chugach mountains! Then I fly on a
small plane to Dutch Harbor, a CG base and fishing port on the Aleutian Islands
where the Healy will be waiting for us. I’ll be in Dutch Harbor for about 24
hours at each end of the cruise so that should be pretty interesting to spend a
little time in an Aleutian fishing port.
I’ll explain more about the science
itself once I get out there, but very briefly the scientists are studying
plankton colonies under the sea ice and how they are being impacted by climate
change. Since phytoplankton form the foundation of the arctic food chain
anything that happens to them has major effects all the way up the food chain
to whales and polar bears, so this research could have serious implications for
the whole arctic ecosystem. We’ll be at sea for six weeks total, heading north
through the Bering Sea, through the Bering Strait (I’ll be able to see
Russia!), and into the Chukchi Sea just above the Bering Strait, and then the
reverse to get back to Dutch Harbor.
My role is to use art
to humanize the science and make it more accessible and appealing. While onboard the Healy I will be making daily drawings for the official outreach website (which I'll post the link for as soon as I have it) and also working on imagery for
a larger body of prints/drawings/fiber art about plankton and their role in the
arctic ecosystem that will be finished back on land after the cruise. After the
project is over there will be an exhibit of work from the whole outreach team which will hopefully be able to generate some emotional appeal for plankton,
marine biology, and arctic conservation in a way that dry science writing
can’t.
So...HUGE
thank you to Bob Pickart for making this happen! And also to Ben for
organizing, which is not an easy task, especially when I'm involved.
Thanks for all the support I've been getting from everyone! Wish me luck and I'll see you in July!
