Amanda Bunce, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, recently translated her forestry research into an art installation. In a collaboration with faculty and students in School of Fine Arts, she created a piece about tree sway for the Weather Report, an exhibit currently on view at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.
The Weather Report explores weather phenomena and the Earth’s atmosphere through different visual media, including sculpture, drawing, painting, installation and video. According to the press release, the exhibit aims “to reveal the sky as a site where the romantic, the political, the social, and the scientific co-exist and inform one another.”
Bunce, who completed her undergraduate degree in studio art, was approached by artist Pat Pickett about turning her research into an artistic form for the exhibition. They first met at the 8th International Conference on Wind and Trees at the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Mesa Laboratory in Boulder, CO in 2017.
“I gave a talk about my research and she gave a talk about her art,” says Bunce. “About a year later, Pat told me that she was in this upcoming show at the Aldrich and the organizers were looking to incorporate some science. She suggested they contact me. It’s ironic because I got my bachelor’s in art and I said, ‘That’s it for that. I’m going to do anything else.’ Now, here I am in a legitimate gallery.”
