The Art and Science of Restoration Ecology

June 8 – September 25, 2018

Art and the science of restorative ecology have much in common. Both disciplines focus on how we see the world around us and how humans interact with their environment.

The exhibition The Art and Science of Restoration Ecology examines the way a graduate art and an ecology course combined to develop an understanding of how art can help to encourage the process of ecological restoration and how ecological restoration can be an inspiration for art.

Ecological restoration is the act of returning a damaged or degraded landscape back to a natural state. Students in the graduate studio art and graduate ecological restoration classes worked together during the spring 2018 semester to explore the artistic and scientific aspects of restoring the environment at Mae Simmons Park, located at East 24th St. and Martin Luther King Blvd. in Lubbock.

The park is a location of many community activities, including cross country meets and other sports activities, a disc golf course, and community and LISD events. The park is in need of ecological restoration, due to debris and trash which have floated into the park and its lake from runoff water. There also is a need to restore the native indigenous species to beautify and diversify the ecology of the area.

The works in The Art and Science of Restoration Ecology are artistic interpretations and reactions to the site as well as the gathering and interpretation of scientific data.

The Art and Science of Restoration Ecology is on view June 8 through September 25, 2018 in Leonardo's Kitchen, a Museum of Texas Tech University gallery dedicated to changing exhibitions based on the research, scholarship and creative activity of Texas Tech faculty and students. David Lindsay, studio art professor in the School of Art and Robert Cox, habitat restoration ecology professor in the Department of Natural Resources Management, co-taught the joint graduate class.

For more on this project, click here.