Community Invited to Discover Umwelt. What?

Exhibit opens May 23, San Juan Island Museum of Art

— from Diane Martindale —

Umwelt (pronounced: /oomvelt): the world as it is experienced by any one particular organism.

The upcoming exhibit, LIMINAL CURRENTS; Exploration of an Empathic Umwelt, is an awe-inspiring installation by Matthew Gray Palmer that provides an opportunity to embrace another way of seeing reality. As humans living on islands, we live on a boundary between a continent and an ocean; we also occupy a sensory space between sky and water. As participants within this installation, we are invited to immerse ourselves in an art space to experience empathy with underwater marine life.

While the coming exhibit in the glass atrium of the San Juan Islands Museum of Art (IMA) will be designed and directed by Friday Harbor sculptor, Matthew Gray Palmer, visitors and volunteers are actively encouraged to help complete the project throughout the duration of the exhibit. They will be encouraged to write their blessings, thoughts, wishes and prayers on “ribbons” which will become part of the artwork. Everyone is welcome to participate.

Even though the installation officially opens on May 23, the construction will continue with the assistance of community volunteers. To learn more about how to participate, please call Diane at 360-370-5814 to explore the construction schedule.

Palmer is dedicated to teaching natural science and conservation through public art. His projects with the National Park Service over the past several years have included monumental works placed in Arches National Park (Utah), Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (California), and Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve near New Orleans.

Recently, Matthew installed a life-sized African Elephant made of Butterflies at the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk, VA. He has also won the Eckleberry Scholarship Award from the Society of Animal Artists.

In his own words, Palmer described his design concept. “By engaging our capacity for imagining what another beings experience empathically, we might shift our perspective to include a fuller picture of the ways we have, do, and will connect, communicate, and share the world with other denizens of this island jewel. Our cultivation and exploitation of the planet’s resources and the impact of these methods are dramatically contrasted in this micro-island ecosystem where very few actions make significant changes.”