Painting the Landscape: Communicating ecosystem service values through art-based knowledge mobilization

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Liane Miedema Brown, Milena Rosenfield and Virginia Capmourteres, School of Environmental Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada, Hayley Brackenridge, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada, Milena Rosenfield, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Brazil, Madhur Anand, Global Ecological Change & Sustainability Laboratory, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada

Background/Question/Methods
Natural landscapes provide ecosystem services that are vital to human wellbeing, including temperature regulation, and water purification, as well as non-material services such as inspiration, psychological experiences, and learning. Working landscapes (i.e., agroecosystems) are expanding and becoming increasingly homogenous. As a result, the protection and restoration of natural landscapes, such as forests and wetlands, is imperative to maintain the ecosystem services they provide. But the question remains: How to communicate this essential information to the communities, cities and organizations that actually protect these ecosystems?
This is where art-based knowledge mobilization provides a vital connection in ecology, communicating the importance of natural areas in the wider ecosystem in a way that scientific research, however essential, cannot. Recognizing how interdisciplinary projects can synergize intellectual and creative capacity, the Guelph Institute for Environmental Research (GIER) and Guelph’s Food from Thought (FfT) research program hosted an arts-based knowledge mobilization program to leverage the potential of art-science collaboration. This project fostered a dialogue between society, artists and scientists, finding a new and creative way to communicate the work of conservation areas and researchers from the University of Guelph.
Results/Conclusions
The result was 7 new paintings, each focused on a specific scale of research and carefully crafted to reflect the essential value that the temperate forests in Southern Ontario provide. These paintings explore the valuable processes that natural areas provide to society within the Credit Valley watershed, and of the scales at which they impact the land around them. This series plays into the tension between accuracy of scientific study and artistic expression, integrating empirical research and geospatial data with symbolic and evocative imagery and using images and maps from the forests and wetlands to creatively visualizing value.
Despite their importance for human health and well being, there are not currently existing policies supporting natural land conservation in landscape planning in Ontario. Grassroots organizations and social movements are the catalyst for demanding changes to government policies to facilitate conservation and sustainability of natural landscapes. This art-based knowledge mobilization translates important information on the value of these natural lands and provides an inclusive and immersive medium for increasing community awareness around ecological issues, inspiring conservation, protection, advocacy and connection to nature. This poster illustrates the benefits of art-based science communication, outlining artistic vision to express the details of scientific study.