Una investigación científico-artística sobre el devenir del residuo vegetal de especies exóticas [invasoras]
[Graphic Ecosystems: An Scientific-Artistic research on the Evolution of vegetal waste from [invasive] alien species]
Doctoral Thesis (2020-2024)
International mention – cum laude
Author: Antía Iglesias Fernández
Directed by: Ann Heyvaert & Ángeles Cancela Carral
Program of Creativity, Social Innovation and Sustainability
University of Vigo, Spain
Scientific, artistic and conceptual research on the implications and material possibilities of vegetal raw material of selected alien species for its application on art practice/creation.
‘Ecosistemas gráficos’ is a project situated within the fine arts, in collaboration with chemical and forestry engineering, framed within an inter- and transdisciplinary context. Through a hybrid methodology that combines artistic and scientific processes and media, the ecological issues related to exotic-invasive species and the residue generated from their management in affected territories are addressed. The project proposes utilizing this residue for integration into contemporary artistic creation, through material and processual research, leveraging the pedagogical capacity of art-science dynamics.
This material-conceptual and scientific-artistic research focuses on the riparian forest of the Umia River, in Ribadumia, Pontevedra, Galicia, where four relevant and highly present non-native species were identified: three invasive herbaceous species (Arundo donax, Phytolacca americana, and Tradescantia fluminensis) and one exotic tree species (Eucalyptus globulus subsp. globulus). These four selected species form the central axis of the research, alongside the conceptual and methodological analysis of the processes and materials used. The project centers on the potential materiality and latent artistic capacity of the residue collected from these selected species and the processes of material transformation.
This is approached from three dimensions: scientific-technical, theoretical-conceptual, and artistic-practical. Specifically, on a technical level, the potential of non-wood fibers derived from the leaves, bark, and stems of the selected species is evaluated for the standardized production of paper and lake pigments, both essential materials for graphic artistic creation. Their suitability and mechanical, physical, chemical, and optical performance are analyzed using specialized tools in the Wood Chemistry laboratories of the School of Forestry Engineering, as well as at the CACTI (Scientific-Technical Support Center for Research) facilities at the University of Vigo.
Additionally, these materials are tested and evaluated through artistic creation, determining their graphic and expressive effectiveness as manifested in contemporary artwork (expanded graphics). The images and data obtained from the technical and artistic-practical sampling are interwoven and transition between scientific and expressive purposes, clearly dissolving disciplinary boundaries and leading us into other hybrid realities.
Conceptually, the notion of exotic-invasive species (EIS) is a significant starting point for critical reflection on its implications, analyzing not only its ecological but also philosophical magnitude, addressing terms such as anthropocentrism, the construction of natural systems, post-nature, plant reality, territorial anthropization, or interspecies relationships. By addressing these issues, the proposal is contextualized within a creative practice and contemporary thinking framework known as environmental humanities, through interdisciplinarity.
Both the technical and conceptual dimensions of the project intertwine and impact the resulting artistic practice, which is both the outcome and a part of the research itself. Through the creation of graphic installation pieces (expanded field graphic art), the project seeks to reflect, investigate, and materialize the proposed concepts, produced materials, and the observed dichotomous tensions: art-science, human and non-human, natural artificial, within this specific case study. The research allows for the visualization and demonstration of the creative potential residing in science and the generally ephemeral, intermediate states of scientific processes, which are susceptible to being translated and captured in artistic practice. Through the application of scientific languages, tools, and methods to the medium of art, the expanded graphic work is proposed to formulate the complexity of sympoietic systems (where science, nature, and art intersect). Ideas of recording, process, method, materiality, territory, laboratory, experimentation, data, and speculation materialize in the produced artistic works and the exhibition “Un bosque de malas hierbas,” as the global result of the research.
The triple approach of the research—technical, theoretical, and artistic—allows for the conceptualization of the notion of exotic-invasive plant residue and its application in a literal, metaphorical, and poetic manner to artistic creation. Additionally, the close relationship between artistic and scientific research is demonstrated through experimentation and creation.
Finally, the relevance of interdisciplinarity in addressing complex issues is highlighted, showing how scientific research can nourish and enrich artistic practice, and how art research provides new perspectives and meanings
of knowledge, in this case, related to interspecies relationships.
