It’s been a little over eight months since I last posted anything here. In that time, I’ve been on the COVID roller-coaster with the rest of the United States—holed up working from home, dealing with zoom fatigue and maintaining sanity with daily bike rides, walks, and explorations of local preserves managed by The Trustees of Reservations.
Hemlock Hospice opens to the public on October 7, 2017 at noon, and will be up for more than a year (through November 18, 2018). We have a website, a schedule of events for the opening reception, and are putting the finishing touches on the last of more than a dozen sculptural pieces emplaced thoughtfully throughout a new interpretive trail within the Prospect Hill Tract at the Harvard Forest. A substantial outreach effort is leading to press coverage, interviews, seminar invitations, etc., especially in the art world. Scientists, though, generally are a bit more muted in their response or apparent interest. Why might that be?
In pursuit of an answer, I explore here the importance of empathy in field research.
empathy, n. “The ability to understand and appreciate another person’s feelings, experience, etc.”
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) online, June 2017. Accessed 10 September 2017
I’m taking a day off from writing about my scientific and culinary adventures in China, and turning my attention to science and art. I spend a lot of time thinking about the relationship between science and art, but not in the way that it is mostly written and talked about, which is art drawing influence from science and technology, and reinterpreting it for different audiences. Rather, I’m particularly interested in how science and scientists – which in my case means ecology and ecologists – have been and continue to be influenced by art and the humanities in general. I’ve even written a couple of papers on the subject, which you can read elsewhere on this site.
But right now, I’m working with Carri LeRoy, a faculty member at the Evergreen State College in Washington State, to organize an “ignite” session for next summer’s Ecological Society of America meetings, to be held in Portland, Oregon. If you’re interested in this topic, and want to give a talk/presentation/exhibition or join the discussion, then…
The Unbalanced Ecologist 