Science and Culture: An ecosystem in the balance, captured in a work of art

As visitors approach the ominously titled sculpture Collapse, they may be puzzled by the pyramid of 455 one-gallon jars. But as they step closer, it becomes clear that most of the jars, stacked 12 feet high and 15 feet on each side, contain a multitude of exquisitely detailed marine specimens. Other jars, however, are noticeably empty, and some hold small containers of tarry, black oil.

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Collapse offers an artistic take on an ecosystem in peril. Installation by Brandon Ballengée with Todd Gardner, Jack Rudloe, Brian Schiering, and Peter Warny, 2010/2012. Image courtesy of Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Among the many jars of Gulf specimens are small samples of oil from the 2010 spill. Installation by Brandon Ballengée with Todd Gardner, Jack Rudloe, Brian Schiering, and Peter Warny, 2010/2012. Image courtesy of Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences.

Collapse is a three-dimensional essay born of scientific study and acute worry. Created by artist Brandon Ballengeé, who is also an amphibian biologist at McGill University in Montreal, it reflects his deep concerns about the state of the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig disaster in 2010. After an explosion sank the rig and ruptured its well, over 4.2 million barrels of oil, according to government estimates, spewed into the surrounding waters over the course of nearly three months (1) [as did ∼300,000 tons of gas (2) and 7,500 tons of dispersant (3)]. Ballengeé subsequently traveled to the Gulf and met with researchers in an attempt to assess the spill’s scope and its long-term ecological impacts.

Soon after, the inspiration for Ballengeé’s art project literally showed up on his doorstep. Starting in the summer of 2010, before Ballengeé had even conceived of Collapse, colleagues and friends in the Gulf started sending him specimens, artifacts, and photos related to the Gulf food chain. “In the beginning, I didn’t exactly know what to do with them,” says Ballengeé, whose research focuses on deformities in amphibians. Eventually he used more than 26,000 preserved specimens representing 370 species of fish and other aquatic organisms to create a piece that, he hopes, expresses something profound about the Gulf ecosystem and its rather dire prospects.

On June 11, 2015, Collapse, went on display at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska. (It was at the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, DC from November 2014 until April 2015.) But even when Ballengeé first exhibited the piece in New York City at the Ronald Feldman Fine Arts gallery in the spring of 2012, people were no longer talking about the disaster, he recalls. Instead, there was a sense that the oil spill had been cleaned up, and that everything was back to normal. “I knew that wasn’t the case when talking to researchers, looking at papers,” says Ballengeé.

Although the Gulf has recovered to some extent, recent studies have indicated serious impacts on Gulf life (4⇓–6). Other studies suggest that tons of the oil, initially unaccounted for, are actually resting at the bottom of the ocean (3, 7⇓–9). (Multinational energy company BP, which owns the damaged well, has disputed the estimates for oil left behind, suggesting such studies have used flawed methodology.) Ballengeé likes to think that the New York exhibition of Collapse helped to raise awareness among its viewers, who included Florida Senator Bill Nelson, a vocal critic of BP in the months and years since the spill.

But Ballengeé is careful to point out that although the piece was inspired by scientific research, it is not science. Instead, he sought to draw in viewers and provoke an emotional response: one that brought their eyes to these specimens while displaying their fragility and showcasing how their diverse colors, shapes, and forms respond to light.

Ballengeé curated each of the jars to make it aesthetically compelling. The specimens are mounted on acrylic in glass to make them look as though they’re “floating in space,” he says. Viewers are meant to feel compelled to look from every angle, getting a sense of the Gulf food chain. In the galleries where it has been on display, viewers typically turn a corner before being confronted with this pyramid of preserved life. “They can’t escape it,” says Ballengeé.

When environmental researcher Kim Waddell was first invited to see the work as part of a National Academy of Sciences event last December, he was skeptical. Waddell, a senior program officer with the National Academies Gulf Research Program, didn’t want to be part of an event with an alarmist message that suggested the Gulf’s ecosystem had actually collapsed because of the spill. “I’m not a fan of hyperbole,” he says, noting that it can undermine scientists’ credibility.

But Waddell did attend, and was impressed. He liked the way the species occupied a three-dimensional space that evoked the Gulf’s complex biodiversity and trophic interactions, both at the water’s surface and hundreds of feet beneath the waves. “It helped remind us that we really do need to think, be more conscious about our footprint, not just carbon footprint but our footprint on ecosystems,” says Waddell.

Ballengeé, though, hopes the piece serves as more than a vehicle for science outreach. He likes to see all his creations function as stand-alone works of art that allow viewers to inspect and react without being told what they should take away from the experience.

“Science tells us about what’s going on, but science doesn’t tell us about how we feel about what’s going on,” says Carl Safina, an ecologist and science communicator at Stony Brook University in New York, who authored the 2011 book A Sea in Flames: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Blowout (10). “People don’t pay attention to facts unless there’s an emotional relationship to the facts.” Safina saw Collapse in New York and has long admired Ballengeé’s work.

“It’s a mistake to think of this as outreach for science,” Safina says, speaking of such pieces. “Science should be compelling enough on its own.” But he acknowledges a “dynamic tension” in works of art that entail science, a balancing act between the didactic aim of relaying information and the more artistic goal of creating a thought-provoking work that elicits emotion.