Dead-zones performance was presented in transit on a bus at the Southern Graphics Council International in Dallas, TX. This performance presents the research and conversations with Dr. Joan Bernhard who studies Foraminifera surviving and adapting in dead-zones (low oxygen environments). In May 2018, I was invited to spend 10 days on a research vessel, that travelled to the Santa Barbara Basin with marine biologists, chemists, PHD candidates and the ship’s crew to generate prints in response to the chief scientist’s research.
The “Dead-zones” performance features Iowa printmaking faculty Tom Christison as himself, BFA printmaker Casey Mathews as Dr. Samuel Bowser and Printmaking graduate student as Dr. Joan Bernhard.
“With the expansion of oxygen-depleted habitats in oceans today, the capacity for organisms to adapt and persist in oxygen-depleted conditions or without any oxygen will be essential to sustain life. Foraminiferan protists present a unique and relevant organism in which to study the physiological response of such environmental changes. Additionally, given their metabolic plasticity under changing environments and because fossil foraminifera are used extensively for interpretations of past climate conditions, an improved understanding of their physiological responses to environmental change will bolster abilities to predict future climate-change responses in the ocean.”
- Dr. Joan Bernhard
