EXPLORATORY WORKS: DRAWINGS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF TROPICAL RESEARCH FIELD EXPEDITIONS

摘要

Exploratory Works: Drawings from the Department of Tropical Research Field Expeditions is an exhibition examining the images produced by the Department of Tropical Research (DTR) during its pioneering ecological expeditions to South America and the Caribbean in the first half of the twentieth century. The exhibition features 60 never-before-exhibited historical drawings produced by a variety of artists in collaboration with the DTR's scientists, alongside two new major installations by artist Mark Dion, which recreate with great detail the DTR's field labs for their jungle and aquatic expeditions. Co-organized by Dion, historian and anthropologist Katherine McLeod, and Madeleine Thompson, institutional archivist at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, Exploratory Works highlights a seminal moment when art advanced our understanding of science, and in turn science trusted the intuition of the artists to show us something that was previously unimagined.