Mark Dion traveled to Komodo National Park in Indonesia,
where he lived aboard a small wooden boat with his wife and
a number of park rangers.
“The front-line defenses of the park in the face of threats
like poaching or population pressure,” said Mark, “are the
park rangers and >eld managers who labor in often dangerous circumstances for long and hard hours and the most
modest of compensation. They have a deep identi>cation with
the park’s goals and put their lives on the line to uphold ideals
of wildlife conservation.”
Mark built a mobile ranger cart for their use (and a replica
cart for display in the exhibition), crafted in the style of commonplace Indonesian pushcarts that pro=er everything from
shoes to mangos. He out>tted the cart with sturdy wheels that
could be pushed easily over rough terrain and all of the materials the rangers could want—>rst aid supplies, guidebooks,
microscopes, sample-collecting kits, >ns, masks, snorkels,
maps, batteries, and so on.
“In projects like Human/Nature it is possible to see how
much can be done with very little resources,” he said. “I think
an e=ort like this one is powerful in helping to foster a culture
of nature and making those of us committed to the idea of
conservation feel less isolated and beleaguered.”
• • • • • • •
While doing her residency in the Galápagos Islands,
Ann Hamilton worked with a group of eighth grade students
at the public school, Colegio Nacional Los Galápagos. “I
wanted to do more than be inspired,” she said. “Being in the
Galápagos meant crossing a kind of waterline with all of the
challenges—literally—of getting our feet wet.”
Ann took the students on two >eld trips (for many, this was
their >rst time seeing tortoises in the wild or snorkeling in
the bay), and together they wrote a text about the islands to
perform as a chorus. The students held the sounds of >nches,
seals, frigate birds, whales, and other Galápagos animals in
the palms of their hands—the calls playing from small speakers and ampli>cation cones that Ann made.
“I was focused on the clear divide between the natural
world of the archipelago and the world of the city,” she said.
“It is a divide as old as the relation between the city and the
forest but it needs as much stewardship as the environment itself.”
Ann performed in a similar fashion with a group of
American high school students in San Diego. Her installation
for Human/Nature refers to both collaborations. The texts sit
on simple choral stands inside the gallery and the cones (
playing animal sounds) hang from the ceiling and along one wall.
An image of a waterline, >lmed by a half-submerged camera,
A B O V E : (Upper) Mobile Ranger Library—Komodo National
Park, 2008, by Mark Dion. BE L O W: Galápagos Chorus, 2008,
by Ann Hamilton. The hanging cones, once worn by schoolchildren in Galápagos and San Diego, project wildlife sounds.
