Art in Dialogue with 100 Years of Tropical Science

How to grow a culture of care for the tropics in connection with other ecosystems of the Earth?

This open conversation hosted by the art and ecology platform, Estudio Nuboso, invites participants to engage with the questions of the importance of the tropics for the overall wellbeing of the planet; how to create more awareness about the research that takes place there? and how to build bridges of solidarity, deeper understanding and greater planetary consciousness through science, art and culture?

The panel will include participants in the Art and Science Residency to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute research station Barro Colorado Island: the site of the longest ongoing conversation on tropical science in the world – Erin Spear, Klaus Winter, Beth King, Olivia Milloway, Isabel Brostella, Isabel De Obaldía, Carolina Borrero, and Estudio Nuboso facilitators: Ela Spalding and Emily Zhukov. Other guests will include tropical researchers based in Germany, as well as cultural practitioners in the world of interdisciplinary collaboration through artistic research and practice.

The exhibition Barro Colorado Island: A Hundred Years of Discovery and Wonder, is currently on show until January 2024 in the Interoceanic Panama Canal Museum in Panama City to share the many stories and ongoing influences on the world of a site of longterm scientific research. The artistic results of the residency are interwoven within the exhibition.