Biology Seminar: Dr. Juniper Harrower

Ecological Imaginaries: Joshua Tree Roots, Repair, and the Trouble with Science Art

Dr. Juniper Harrower, Assistant Professor of Art, Reed College

As the climate warms, Joshua trees could disappear from most of their range within a century. Ecologist and artist Juniper Harrower’s research helped inform the policy that made the western Joshua tree the first species protected in California primarily because of climate threats. Yet little is known about how these trees live underground. Her recent excavations have traced one root more than 14 meters (46 feet) from its tree. They also turned up structures that may be yucca moth pupae, hinting at a missing underground chapter in one of biology’s most-taught mutualisms. Art-science is usually framed as illustrations of finished findings or as critique of science’s assumptions and exclusions. Both matter, but neither captures art’s capacity to take part in inquiry. Harrower proposes art as a mode of knowledge-making that works alongside ecological science, generating questions, staging speculative models and cultivating attention, without standing in for empirical evidence. She moves among fungal imaging, painting, a mock-online dating site for Joshua trees, and her fictitious agency, the Department of Floristic Welfare. Along the way she explores how play and speculation can make ecological relations perceptible and rehearse practices of multispecies care and repair.

11:50 am- Snacks & Socializing
noon- Talk Begin