Christine Baeumler’s tamarack wetland restoration project on the roof of the main entrance to MCAD calls attention to these fragile and unique ecosystems and presents an artistic reimaging of green roof infrastructure. The project intends to remind residents how we might “reconstitute” the landscape by capturing water where it drops. An adjacent outside wall features a large-scale video projection of spectral tamaracks, and “field stations” are set up in the second floor galleries where the rooftop is especially visible through floor-to-ceiling windows. Visitors can look at the installation through binoculars, learn about the animals that inhabit this unique and often inaccessible landscape, and record their own observations. Maps of local remnant tamarack ecosystems and information on how people might explore these unique places will be available. During Northern Spark a naturalist will be on site to answer visitors’ questions.

Presented by MCAD Gallery at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design with support from the McKnight Foundation, Barr Engineering, and the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization

Christine Baeumler

Christine Baeumler, the recipient of a 2011/12 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Visual Artists, is associate professor of art at the University of Minnesota. As a public environmental artist, she explores the power of art to increase awareness about environmental issues and to facilitate action. She approaches her art through the combined perspective of art and the natural sciences, and her concern lies not only with diminishing ecosystems but also with the extinction of the human experience of these environments and the species that inhabit them. By portraying places remote from our daily experiences, yet impacted ecologically by our actions, her work offers the viewer a glimpse into these compelling, fragile, and often invisible worlds.