Look Here: Making the Invisible Visible in Sustainable Art and Design

This exhibition spotlights seven Minnesota artists and designers working to change people's perception and understanding of our impact on the natural world. A focal point of this show is the tamarack bog that sits upon the main entrance to the college. Reconstituting the Landscape: A Tamarack Rooftop Restoration is a project by Christine Baeumler, associate professor of art at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, in collaboration with Barr Engineer, Vice President/Principal Kurt Leuthold, and Barr Ecologist Fred Rozumalski. Established in 2012 when Baeumler was a McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship recipient, the bog is the only known tamarack green roof in the world.  

Baeumler’s concern for the declining tamarack forests of Minnesota has manifested in a variety of the projects. The most recent is a video that will be featured in the exhibition along with photographs by Elizabeth Blair, professor of English at Southwest Minnesota State University who is also a nature photographer and tamarack bog expert. Her Bog Tapestry series features minute details in the surface water of Itasca County’s solitary black spruce, tamarack, and cedar bogs. Each macro image depicts three to five inches of water surface, which changes from moment to moment, based on the sun’s angle, time of day, weather, wind, and season.

Other invited artists either teach for MCAD’s master of arts in sustainable design program or are alumni of the college. Amanda Lovelee ’10, MFA, works as an artist-in-residence for the City of St. Paul and regularly experts in a wide variety of fields—from scientists to public employees. The Education Pollination Station that Lovelee created with Anna Bierbrauer and MaryLynn Pulscher from the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board maps the urban ecology of the Twin Cities, the journeys of our pollinators, and the stories of our communities to encourage action on habitat protection for bees and monarch butterflies.

Arlene Birt ’02 uses storytelling, interaction, visualization, and information design to connect consumers' actions to global issues. She runs Background Stories, an infodesign consultancy that translates complex ideas, systems and metrics into clear visuals that help people understand sustainability. Birt will showcase a dozen examples of her work for clients in the European Union, United Kingdom, and United States.

Susan Crow ’09 is a sustainable designer, entrepreneur, and CEO of East Fourth Street, a luxury eco-jewelry business in Minneapolis. Her handmade pieces are crafted in a low-impact, environmentally conscious studio from 100% recycled or Fairmined gold and silver, recycled diamonds and ethical Fair Trade gemstones that can be traced from mine to market.

Craig Johnson ’14, MA, creative director and principal at AGENCY F Design in Minneapolis and past associate director of sustainability for AIGA Minnesota will highlight three examples of his design work, ranging from an analysis of the life cycle of a sleeping bag to a paperless poster system.

Holly Robbins is a partner and creative director of This Is Folly, a design studio in Minneapolis that specializes in ecologically-minded design. For the exhibition she will be creating a graphic Taxonomy of Sustainable Design Strategies, which relates to the class that she teaches for MCAD's master of arts in sustainable design program.