Aaron Ellison
Interview by Kiran Gurung, Colloquium Manager
Aaron Ellison (2019) within Dani Karavan’s In the Beginning. Kirishima Open-Air Museum, Kirishima, Japan. Photograph © Flossie Chua & Aaron M. Ellison
Kiran Gurung: Tell us a bit about your scientific research.
Aaron Ellison: For nearly 40 years, I have studied how ecosystems - assemblages of organisms that interact with each other and with their surrounding environment - are organized, how that organization changes when they are perturbed by “natural” and human activities, and how they recover from these disturbances. I work around the world, studying large, long-lived trees, small, short-lived insects, and the micro-ecosystem of bacteria, protozoa, and fly larvae that live within the water-filled leaves of carnivorous pitcher plants. I’m also a statistician and have helped to develop new methods that presage tipping points in ecosystems and to identify the “foundation species” that exert disproportionate control on biodiversity and ecosystem services. And for the last decade or so, I’ve been revisiting the founding principles of ecological science, the social context in which they arose, and how that context -19th-century Romanticism - continues to influence ecology and its broader applications in our everyday life.
Aaron Ellison: For nearly 40 years, I have studied how ecosystems - assemblages of organisms that interact with each other and with their surrounding environment - are organized, how that organization changes when they are perturbed by “natural” and human activities, and how they recover from these disturbances. I work around the world, studying large, long-lived trees, small, short-lived insects, and the micro-ecosystem of bacteria, protozoa, and fly larvae that live within the water-filled leaves of carnivorous pitcher plants. I’m also a statistician and have helped to develop new methods that presage tipping points in ecosystems and to identify the “foundation species” that exert disproportionate control on biodiversity and ecosystem services. And for the last decade or so, I’ve been revisiting the founding principles of ecological science, the social context in which they arose, and how that context -19th-century Romanticism - continues to influence ecology and its broader applications in our everyday life.
"Warming Warning" (2018). Installation at Harvard Forest, 29.5 × 10.3 × 9 feet. Hemlock timbers, acrylic paint, and miscellaneous hardware. Designed by David Buckley Borden & Aaron M. Ellison; constructed and installed by David Buckley Borden, Aaron M. Ellison, Jack Byers, Lucas Griffith, Roland Munier, Dan Pedersen & Matt Robinson. Photograph © Aaron M. Ellison.
KG: In your experience, what do artists and scientists have in common?
AE: Fundamentally, artists and scientists are explorers of ideas and hypotheses beyond our current understanding. We spend a lot of time carefully sensing the world around us - what Shari Tishman has called “slow looking”—while considering how to best communicate complex ideas to our ourselves, our colleagues, and to broader audiences in accessible ways and in a diversity of media.
Ecologists and ecological artists both bring a strong “sense of place” to their work. Ecological theories are most successful when they are grounded in the details of a species’ natural history because how different individuals of different species interact with one another depends on where and when they are. Ecological art is similarly context-dependent. For example, the Hemlock Hospice installation (2017-2018) that I co-designed with Cambridge (Massachusetts)-based artist and designer David Buckley Borden focused on coming to terms with ecosystem change. It was successful in large part because it was situated within a rapidly changing forest and within the community of scientists studying it.
AE: Fundamentally, artists and scientists are explorers of ideas and hypotheses beyond our current understanding. We spend a lot of time carefully sensing the world around us - what Shari Tishman has called “slow looking”—while considering how to best communicate complex ideas to our ourselves, our colleagues, and to broader audiences in accessible ways and in a diversity of media.
Ecologists and ecological artists both bring a strong “sense of place” to their work. Ecological theories are most successful when they are grounded in the details of a species’ natural history because how different individuals of different species interact with one another depends on where and when they are. Ecological art is similarly context-dependent. For example, the Hemlock Hospice installation (2017-2018) that I co-designed with Cambridge (Massachusetts)-based artist and designer David Buckley Borden focused on coming to terms with ecosystem change. It was successful in large part because it was situated within a rapidly changing forest and within the community of scientists studying it.
"Warming Warning" (detail).
KG: How do you revisit and reframe questions in your own research following your cross-disciplinary collaborations?
AE: The greatest value of inter-/multi-/cross-disciplinary collaborations is that it forces me to revisit my assumptions about how the world “works.” Neither modern science nor contemporary art exists in a vacuum. Rather, they are built on foundations of centuries of thought and work that we implicitly -and often unquestionably - build into our own ideas and practice. Questioning and rethinking are essential for sparking new directions in science, and in art.
KG: Are there any upcoming exhibitions, or plans for collaboration, you're involved in and would like to share?
AE: For several years now, David Buckley Borden and I have been developing a series of projects about “Novel Ecosystems.” Our most recent completed project, Warming Warning, is currently exhibited at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts; the quarter-scale study-model for it is on display through October 4, 2019 at the Cambridge Arts Council’s Gallery 344 as part of their group exhibition, "Untold Possibilities at the Last Minute."
We are currently building a new piece, Novel Ecosystem Generator, which will be part of the exhibition "Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping our Genetic Futures," opening October 17, 2019 at North Carolina State University.
AE: The greatest value of inter-/multi-/cross-disciplinary collaborations is that it forces me to revisit my assumptions about how the world “works.” Neither modern science nor contemporary art exists in a vacuum. Rather, they are built on foundations of centuries of thought and work that we implicitly -and often unquestionably - build into our own ideas and practice. Questioning and rethinking are essential for sparking new directions in science, and in art.
KG: Are there any upcoming exhibitions, or plans for collaboration, you're involved in and would like to share?
AE: For several years now, David Buckley Borden and I have been developing a series of projects about “Novel Ecosystems.” Our most recent completed project, Warming Warning, is currently exhibited at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts; the quarter-scale study-model for it is on display through October 4, 2019 at the Cambridge Arts Council’s Gallery 344 as part of their group exhibition, "Untold Possibilities at the Last Minute."
We are currently building a new piece, Novel Ecosystem Generator, which will be part of the exhibition "Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping our Genetic Futures," opening October 17, 2019 at North Carolina State University.
"Lost wood table" (2015). 21½ × 13½ × 34″. Salvaged chestnut, white ash, and blown-glass leafcutter ant. Modified from a design by Jennifer Anderson (published in Fine Woodworking Magazine #236 [2013]) and constructed by Aaron M. Ellison. Photograph © Aaron M. Ellison.
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"Ruby-throat" (2015). 26 × 11 × 2½″. Hazelnut branch, spalted maple, and beaded hummingbird. Design and construction: Aaron M. Ellison. Photograph © Aaron M. Ellison.
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Learn more about Aaron’s science and art at his website
Follow him on Twitter @AMaxEll17
