MARA ADAMITZ SCRUPE
Fota
Lichens Project
Fota Arboretum
Cork, Ireland
August 11 - 26,
2005
The Lichens Project, exhibited in the "Flower Room" of historic Fota House in August 2005 and sponsored by the Crawford Municipal Galleries of Cork City, includes a series of 10 large Duratran images, mounted in slim profile stainless steel biomedical light boxes, and featuring detailed photographic views of native Irish lichens. Each image is identified with the individual lichen species name, its status (common, endemic, threatened, endangered, species of special concern, etc.), and its relative tolerance of air pollutants. Light boxes are displayed on custom-fabricated free-standing aluminum tables and accompanied by living lichen specimens presented in handblown bell jars, as well as printed materials describing the ecological significance of these lichens species, and their usefulness for assessing environmental conditions.
Fota
Lichens Project in the Flower Room of Fota House and Arboretum
Ireland is among the cleanest of European nations with respect to natural environmental conditions. Because lichens are effective and reliable bio-indicators, environmental scientists have undertaken lichen studies as a means of determining the relative health of ecosystems. In the 1980’s such studies were conducted in centers of lichen diversity, including County Cork, Ireland, utilizing the rare abilities of these plants to gauge air and water quality, in effect naturally and efficiently monitoring the nation’s environmental conditions in ways unavailable using even the most sophisticated scientific equipment. In the past couple of decades, Ireland has begun to deal with certain formerly unknown forms of environmental and ecological decline resulting from its well-documented growth and development. Ireland is also the natural home of a huge diversity of lichens, some of them rare endemic species.
The Lichens Project represents an effort to conduct a natural science and art-based survey of lichens currently found at the Fota Gardens. While not a scientific study, the results of the project offered a rough idea of the relative environmental health of the air and water found at Fota and in nearby districts – especially when compared with studies conducted in the region around during the 1920's and 1930's and again two decade ago. The project also shared the visual and tactile appeal of these seemingly modest but extraordinarily beautiful and remarkable organisms with a range of audiences (art viewers, gardeners, naturalists, environmentalists, among others); exhibiting The Lichens Project at Fota Arboretum asserts the powerful associations between art and natural science, while sharing in the continuum of efforts by artists in making evocative and meaningful art works from nature.
some of the native lichens photographed at Fota Arboretum
Click here to view Fota House and Arboretum