Shelly Smith,
Biophilium Research Leader
Seattle, WA

My paintings are based on microscopic life I find in water samples taken from all over the world. My process includes collecting water samples, documenting the site locations, and observing the contents with a laboratory microscope. I work both from direct live observation as well as from a series of videos and pictures I record via my microscope camera.

The work I produce is inspired by the tradition of scientific illustration and popular decorative motifs. Done in pen and ink with gouache washes, the illustrated paintings reflect the protozoa, diatoms, algae, and other microscopic life that lives in abundance, hidden from the naked eye but a vital part of our living world. The jewel like beauty of microorganisms sparkles through in glistening colors and metallic sheen, with bold line work reflecting the outlines of these small creatures under a slide.

Catherine Slilaty, Montreal, QC

Stemming from a desire to explore the self as an organism of flux, my work explores the lives of speculative creatures able to transform themselves to adapt to their environment. Inspired by microorganisms, plant life, and the interior structures of organic life, I use monsters and creatures as portals to access parts of ourselves which are intrinsically linked to nature: a site where curiosity, wonder, anguish, and survival instincts collide. As a queer, neurodivergent second-generation immigrant, many aspects of my identity fall into the in-between. I’ve always been drawn to the monster in all forms of media: the othered hybrid, the outcast creature unable to be anything but its unapologetic self, undeniably powerful and free, existing outside of social conventions. I found freedom and healing through the ways monsters have always tended to embrace dread and desire head-on, through radical self-making and resilience. I see these beings as vessels for Othered bodies, allowing access to catharsis by embracing transformation: an ever-evolving, fluid and full self. My current work is focused on the evolutionary jump between the inert and the living: how the organization of matter forming organic life came to be. I’m seeking to blend the latest scientific findings on these topics with a playful speculative approach through animation and drawing.

Rebecca Krinke, White Bear Lake, MN

I have a hybrid life as a visual artist and professor of landscape architecture; these two threads in my work have recently been reaching a new symbiosis. “Earthling School” is the conceptual umbrella that has emerged for my creative practice, research, and teaching which focuses on the Earth, the cosmos, the human and nonhuman world (including NHI) and deepening all relationships between - including those with each other.

Three initiatives were key to developing Earthling School:
1) personal and collaborative work with two biological field stations,
2) a long collaboration with Indigenous and Settler colleagues with the latest being the Two Eyed Seeing and Third Spaces group I convene. (“Two-Eyed Seeing” means to see with the lens of Indigenous and Western science at the same time, for the benefit of all.)
3) my visual art that emerged from a powerful dream I had as an adult. I interpreted the origin dream as a bear that visited. Since then, I have had three sequential dreams with animals: a frog/tadpole, raptor, and octopus that I have explored in my installations. I also draw upon my many anomalous experiences to create places to share with others in which intuition, psychic events, and dreams are brought forth as powerful ways of learning and knowing.

Catherine Euale, Canada, Mexico

Catherine Euale is a textile artist, social justice and environmental activist, costume designer and storyteller. In her practice, she challenges the need to use materials and methods that are noncompatible with living systems. She believes deepening and shifting our relationships with the material can raise awareness of our forgotten relationships within more than human worlds, planting seeds for a “good Anthropocene”. Designing systems for interspecies worlds can ignite tremendous political, social, and philosophical implications that we must consider for a resilient and harmonious future.

Luci Jockel, Baltimore, MD

I make mementos from responsibly-sourced animal remains to honor and grieve the loss of our nonhuman counterparts. Similar to historic mourning ritualistic objects and relics, I explore the agency of remains and wearables to carry memories of past lives and relationships. The tangibility allows us to remain connected to those beyond, preserve their stories and reflect on their lives.

Using materials, such as animal remains, stone and metal, the artist and viewer become physically tied to their surroundings and asked to remember their dependence on the earth. By investigating the quiet intersections between unearthed materials, I attempt to understand the bigger story- the web connecting all beings. My work questions the hierarchical systems of value created around materials and beings, of which we share a common resting ground.

Monika Kinner,
Saskatoon / Jackfish Lake (both in Treaty Six Territory)

Samah Husain, Manama, Bahrain

Ever since I was diagnosed 5 years ago, I started planting in an attempt to understand how tumors grow. Maybe if I learn how they grow, I can figure out how to stop them from growing, or even make them shrink and disappear. With every plant, I learned something new. Then my grandma passed away, followed shortly by my uncle. I had to make sense of it all, so I prepared a funeral, learned how the body is washed and wrapped according to our religion (Islam), and then buried. Dust to dust. We return to the soil. That soil, fertilized by the decomposition of the dead body, grows flowers and plants.

When I die, what will my soil grow? What plant will emerge from my body? This question keeps me up at night.

Ashley Czajkowski,
Arizona Expedition Leader and TA
Professor of Death and Photography at Arizona State University

The human relationship with nature is a tenuous one. We are at once a part of the natural world, yet intentionally set apart from it. I am interested in this disconnect; our refusal as a species to admit that we, too, are animals. There is a sense of savagery that comes with being an animal, being wild. We have been taught to become something other, to become domesticated. There is loss in this becoming. Though all experience this (false) dichotomy between humans and nature, the accepted social construction of femininity is much further removed from the nature of the human animal.

Historically, women who exhibited wild, uncontrollable, or generally undesirable behavior were considered dangerous and mentally unstable. Witch hunts and medical disorders like hysteria illustrate the collective psychoanalytical fear of the “female monster,” and this chastising of unbecoming female behavior lingers to this day. Because femininity is the gender I learned to perform first-hand, the relationship of women and nature is highlighted in my work, drawing connections to sensuality, fertility and the maternal instinct.

Exploring these intrinsic, wild tendencies deep-seated in us all challenges societal expectations of women and men, our relationship to the natural world, our own corporeal existence, and ultimately, our mortality. I'm interested in how harnessing these innate primal desires presents the possibility of reclamation; of re-wilding the human, of unbecoming.

Ishan Khosla, Dehradun, India

As a well-known artist, with exhibitions on work related to art and ecology currently showing in London at the Fashion Textile Museum, Ishan Khosla is currently working with women embroiderers to look at issues related to biodiversity loss in the Himalayan mountains, specifically the region of Himachal Pradesh in India. His work, is based on deep research with discussions and readings of scientific papers bolstered by local community knowledge and folklore. 

Gina Sun, Ithica NY

As a cross-media designer and artist, I integrate academic rigor with innovative creativity, exploring the intersections of Art, Design, and Intelligence within the framework of Human Ecology. My research focuses on sensory experiences—particularly olfactory, tactile, and gustatory modalities—and investigates how humans, machines, and spatial environments interact in the digital age. My interdisciplinary practice spans Human-Computer Interaction, Interactive Information Experience Design, Sensory Design, Media Art Installations, Kansei Engineering, and Cognitive Psychology. Through this multifaceted approach, I examine how technology shapes and mediates our sensory engagement with the world around us.

Currently, I am a Visiting Scholar at the DALI Lab, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University, where I continue to explore Intelligence and Environmental Analysis. My work has been published in leading international conferences and SCI-indexed journals, reflecting my commitment to high-impact research. As an active member of the Asian Digital Art and Design Association, the China Graphic and Image Society, and the Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society, I contribute to advancing interdisciplinary dialogues that bridge technology, design, and human experience in contemporary practice.

Mary Abma, Bright's Grove, Ontario
Biophilium Teacher's Assistant

Mary Abma is a versatile artist who specializes in community-engaged artworks and environmental art. Always up for new challenges, Mary seeks constantly to push the edges of her practice and to learn new skills and information. Her artworks, which consist primarily of idea-based works executed in a variety of artistic forms, explore the theme of “place”. Her work embraces her interest in history, her concern for the environment, her passion for science, and her desire to find visual expression for her insights into the living world and the interconnectedness of systems. Mary’s recent works explore the systems of language and communication within the natural world.

Diana S. Fox, Parker, Colorado, USA

My art reflects my lifelong fascination with fibers and textiles, which are characterized by their rich texture and tactile qualities. Working with fabric creates an intriguing intimacy, and I relish the feel of the material flowing through my hands.

In my current series of work, “Gifts from the Universe," I explore the complex connections between humans and the natural world. I view my artistic practice as a source of inspiration from spirit, bridging the seen and unseen aspects of nature. I often develop my ideas through collage and drawing, then bring them to life using a unique, self-developed technique.

Practically, my work embodies the primary elements of art: color, line, shape, and more. As a dyer and surface designer, I achieve the effects I desire through a combination of techniques, including flat dyeing, monoprinting, and tie-dyeing. An added benefit of working with fiber is the incorporation of texture through stitching, which serves as a final, added element. I consider myself a “quiet” activist for our planet, inviting others to nurture a conscious relationship with our ecosystem. My daily motivations are radical blind trust and the continual question, “What if?”

Catherine Euale, Canada, Mexico

Catherine Euale is a textile artist, social justice and environmental activist, costume designer and storyteller. In her practice, she challenges the need to use materials and methods that are noncompatible with living systems. She believes deepening and shifting our relationships with the material can raise awareness of our forgotten relationships within more than human worlds, planting seeds for a “good Anthropocene”. Designing systems for interspecies worlds can ignite tremendous political, social, and philosophical implications that we must consider for a resilient and harmonious future.

Suus Agnes Claessen, Holland

I am an author-illustrator and comics artist with a background in science communication, literary studies, and beekeeping. My work takes a particular interest in environmental ethics and the underdog. As a PhD candidate at the Centre for Sustainability, Otago University, New Zealand, I currently work on a graphic novel about human relationships with 'unloved' microcommunities of invertebrates, moss, and fungi. This is part of my interdisciplinary research that explores visual narrative as a method for cultivating attentiveness to nonhumans.

I look for ways to better coexist with my environments through different ways of knowing them —from folklore and myth to traditional and contemporary ecological knowledges— and let these stories colour my daily observations and actions, as I’m learning to read my surroundings intimately; perhaps even communicate with them. Who am I to them? Who responds to the seeds and spores I spread?

By engaging story and sense in processes of getting to know other beings, my creative practice seeks to bring them to wider cultural imaginations. It’s too easy to overlook or disregard them as backdrops to human life. By reviving forgotten wisdoms, I wish to contribute to a broader recognition of nonhumans in all shapes and sizes, not just for their importance and wondrousness, but also as life forms in their own rights, alive and aware, creatures full of story and for who things matter.

Luci Jockel, Baltimore, MD

I make mementos from responsibly-sourced animal remains to honor and grieve the loss of our nonhuman counterparts. Similar to historic mourning ritualistic objects and relics, I explore the agency of remains and wearables to carry memories of past lives and relationships. The tangibility allows us to remain connected to those beyond, preserve their stories and reflect on their lives.

Using materials, such as animal remains, stone and metal, the artist and viewer become physically tied to their surroundings and asked to remember their dependence on the earth. By investigating the quiet intersections between unearthed materials, I attempt to understand the bigger story- the web connecting all beings. My work questions the hierarchical systems of value created around materials and beings, of which we share a common resting ground.

Ashley Czajkowski, Arizona
Biophilium Research Leader
Professor of Death and Photography at Arizona State University

The human relationship with nature is a tenuous one. We are at once a part of the natural world, yet intentionally set apart from it. I am interested in this disconnect; our refusal as a species to admit that we, too, are animals. There is a sense of savagery that comes with being an animal, being wild. We have been taught to become something other, to become domesticated. There is loss in this becoming. Though all experience this (false) dichotomy between humans and nature, the accepted social construction of femininity is much further removed from the nature of the human animal.

Historically, women who exhibited wild, uncontrollable, or generally undesirable behavior were considered dangerous and mentally unstable. Witch hunts and medical disorders like hysteria illustrate the collective psychoanalytical fear of the “female monster,” and this chastising of unbecoming female behavior lingers to this day. Because femininity is the gender I learned to perform first-hand, the relationship of women and nature is highlighted in my work, drawing connections to sensuality, fertility and the maternal instinct.

Exploring these intrinsic, wild tendencies deep-seated in us all challenges societal expectations of women and men, our relationship to the natural world, our own corporeal existence, and ultimately, our mortality. I'm interested in how harnessing these innate primal desires presents the possibility of reclamation; of re-wilding the human, of unbecoming.

Tawhida Tanya Evanson, Montreal

My work is an exploration of African diasporic identity, Sufi spirituality, and the human condition in resistance to Western values. It begins in literature and traverses various art forms: poetry, autofiction, orality, music, film and multimedia. The goal is to reunite literature with its
sonic, mystical and spiritual roots as a healing practice for self and humanity.

I walk in the tradition of the multidisciplinary West African griots who combine the role of historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet and musician; and am a student of Sufism which includes mystical practices around poetry, music and prayer.

The Invisible World as real. Writing as prayer. Orality as sacred act. Music and meditation at the divine centre.

Annie Temmink, Charlottesville, VA

I am an artist deeply connected to the theme of consciousness, with a particular interest in inner archetypes and how we set our true nature free. My work often involves intricate headwear and dance or creatures constructed from refuse. In my current practice, I am eager to engage with those who have varied knowledge about the plant world to expand my own potential to work with plant matter and its wisdom, and how to use it to expand human consciousness and conscientiousness of materials. I am thrilled to read about this program and am wholeheartedly committed to joining and using what I may learn to enrich my community.

Renée Magaña, Kallnach, Switzerland

“Renée Magañas oeuvre resembles a virtual cemetery. But a cemetery that one visits with pleasure. Death and transience are indeed woven into all her art. Her work is colorful and cheerful, combining the child's casual curiosity with the adult's experience of loss, sensitive remembrance with subtle cheerfulness.” As a half-Mexican living in Switzerland for several decades, my artistic work deals with the different ideas and significances of death in different cultures. In Mexico, death is not a taboo, but often the subject of an ironic debate that is reflected in the light-hearted representation and form of skeletons, among other things. Death has a high value in various Mexican traditions.

My artistic practice does not distinguish between my daily life and my artistic interests. I am inspired by memories, triggered by different incidents: a smell, a photograph, an environment, a sound, the light, a film. I have been collecting, researching and preserving things dead or relating to death – as an artist and as a private person – for several decades. I collect the overlooked, the left behind, the lost or forgotten. It is a fascination for discovery in the old and the used and how I can transform them in order to present hidden stories they might have to tell.

Klaire Doyle, Manchester, United Kingdom

Klaire Doyle is an interdisciplinary artist and art educator from Northern England.

Her practice investigates sentient / insentient lived experiences and the reclamation of feminine abjection via action, scenography and participatory practice. Vulnerability and curious narratives are at the heart of Klaire's research which longs to answer questions to better navigate the world she lives in. Phenomenology and storytelling is also of great influence to Klaire's practice as she sources experiences of her own and those close around her in an autoethnographic / ethnographic journey to represent those histories. Her work often confronts these discoveries with grotesque humour and a sarcastic bite to overshadow misrepresentations

Klaire's works have been internationally exhibited since 2014, including solo and group works in New York City, Venice Architecture Biennale, Moscow, Tokyo, Helsinki, Melbourne and the Liverpool TATE Exchange.

Ellie Ryan, Halifax Nova Scotion

Following the deaths of a best friend and two close family members when I was twelve years old, I noticed the people around me were reluctant to answer the questions I had around death and dying. In the search to answer the question of what happens as we die. This trauma informed artistic exploration of death has defined both my personal and professional practice and is woven into the projects that I create.

Equipped with a projector and sewing machine I try to bridge the gap between traditional and expanded mediums, stitching together the topics of death and decay with the innate beauty of life and memory. Through the use of both real and digital imagery I encourage the viewer to lean into discomfort and disregard preconceived notions of what art and death can mean. Whether that be bringing art and media into new and unexpected places or through honest advocacy and open discourse surrounding death and the culture associated with it.

With a push to create interactive work, I look to break the boundary of typical gallery expectations, encouraging the viewers to get up close and personal with many of my works, inspiring people to shift how they interact with art in the everyday. Utilizing found fabrics and footage I intertwine the mediums into something new and exciting while paying homage to what came before.