Extinction Cultures:Art

Ethics

Biodiversity

Charles Willson Peale (1741 – 1827), “The Artist in His Museum” (1822)

Charles Willson Peale, “The Artist in His Museum” (1822)

American Incognitum

Extinction1796 paper showed that

living & fossil elephants were distinct species (not linear descent)

Thus: extinction is real

“All of these facts, consistent among themselves, and not opposed by any report, seem to me to prove the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some kind of catastrophe.”

Georges Cuvier (1769 – 1832)

Charles Willson Peale, “The Artist in His Museum” (1822)

Mastodon

Bald Eagle

Wild Turkey

Portraits

Charles Willson Peale, “The Artist in His Museum” (1822)

Biodiversity

Extinction

Biodiversity

Extinction

Climate Change

Biodiversity

Extinction

Climate Change

Human Population Growth

Biodiversity

Extinction

Climate Change

Human Population Growth

Invasive Species

Habitat Degradation & Fragmentation

Biodiversity

Extinction

Climate Change

Human Population Growth

Invasive Species

Habitat Degradation & Fragmentation

Over-exploitation & Monoculture

Biodiversity

Extinction

Climate Change

Human Population Growth

Invasive Species

Habitat Degradation & Fragmentation

Over-exploitation & Monoculture

Culture

BiodiversityFrom mid-1980’s

BiodiversityCoined by Walter G.

Rosen (National Research Council)

National Forum on BioDiversity (Washington, D.C. Sept 21-24 1986)

Biodiversity“In 1988, biodiversity

did not appear as a keyword in Biological Abstracts, and biological diversity appeared once.

In 1993, biodiversity appeared seventy-two times, and biological diversity nineteen times.

David Takacs, The Idea of Biodiversity (1996: 39)

BiodiversityU.N. Convention on

Biological Diversity signed at Earth Summit (Rio 1992)

BiodiversityU.N. Convention on

Biological Diversity signed at Earth Summit (Rio 1992)

International Year of Biodiversity (2010)

Decade of Biodiversity (2011-2020)

BiodiversityKey concept for

emerging field of conservation biology

“Conservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth’s biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction” (Wikipedia)

BiodiversityKey concept for

emerging field of conservation biology

“Conservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth’s biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction” (Wikipedia)

“A discipline with a deadline” (Michael Soulé)

BiodiversityCore task = calculation

of number of existing species & rates/risks of extinction

BiodiversityCore task = calculation

of number of existing species & rates/risks of extinction

No. of species? Ca. 1.8 million known 5 – 10 million?

BiodiversityCore task = calculation of

number of existing species & rates/risks of extinction

No. of species? Ca. 1.8 million known 5 – 10 million?

E.O. Wilson (1993) estimated loss of more than “30,000 species/year – 3 every hour

BiodiversityCore task = calculation of

number of existing species & rates/risks of extinction

No. of species? Ca. 1.8 million known 5 – 10 million?

E.O. Wilson (1993) estimated loss of more than “30,000 species/year – 3 every hour

Wilson (2002): 30 – 50% of all living species may be lost by 2100

Biodiversity“Each specimen in a

museum is a data set of useful information.”

Leslie J. Mehrhoff, “Museums, Research

Collections and the Biodiversity Challenge” in

Biodiversity II (1997)

ExtinctionSpecies loss

comparable to “mass extinction events” from fossil record

Extinction“Hope is a duty from

which paleontologists are exempt” (David Quammen, “Planet of Weeds”)

Extinction“Hope is a duty from

which paleontologists are exempt” (David Quammen, “Planet of Weeds”)

99% of all species that have ever existed are extinct

ExtinctionThe extinction crisis

—the race to save the composition, structure, and organization of biodiversity as it exists today—is over, and we have lost.

--Stephen M. Meyer (2006)

ExtinctionBeing distracted and self-

absorbed, as is our nature, we have not yet fully understood what we are doing. But future generations, with endless time to reflect, will understand it all, and in painful detail. As awareness grows, so will their sense of loss. There will be thousands of ivory-billed woodpeckers to think about in the centuries and millennia to come. (Wilson 2002:5)

Isabella Kirkland“Taxa (Gone)”

Maya Lin, “What Is Missing?” website/project“My last memorial”

Companion Species?“How can food security

for everybody (not just for the rich, who can forget how important cheap and abundant food is) and multispecies coflourishing be linked in practice? … Much collaborative and inventive work is underway on these matters, if only we take touch seriously” (Donna Haraway)

Companion Species?“I do long for an idiom

that considers multispecies flourishing outside the idiom and apparatus of “Saving the Endangered _________”

Species as “messmates”Not isolated, but

interrelatedHow to eat well

together?

ArtWorks for Change Traveling ExhibitField Museum May – Dec 2012