Aquatecture stages a critical analysis of the Birch Aquarium as a public-facing cultural institution, site of scientific research, and historical entity attached to the 118-year existence of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Artist Hans Baumann and environmental art historian Jamie Nisbet take a broad and exploratory approach to the Birch Aquarium's "aquatecture," a term they introduce to encompass the Birch as an interface between human and nonhuman life forms, and between visitors to this public institution and the ocean scientists and eother experts who inform its exhibitions. They focus on the aquarium's physical structure and systems, which are complexly designed to support marine life, human engagement, and inter-species interaction in ways that are not readily apparent. Rather than taking a totalizing approach to the Birch, Baumann and Nisbet zoom in and out of particular aspects of the aquarium’s architecture, shaping these cuts through extended dialog and collaborative exchange with Birch Aquarium staff and specialists who design and maintain the facility and its exhibitions. They document these interactions through audio and video recordings and freehand process drawings. Sketching exercises, co-produced by project leads and their collaborators, are intended as not only a visual dialog, but also a means of emphasizing the qualitative and interpretive aspects of scientific expertise. Aquarium architecture and other aspects of the built environment will be documented through photography, architectural drawings, LIDAR and ground-penetrating radar.
Background image: Construction Begins for the Experimental Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, March 1958. Scripps Institution of Oceanography Photographs, Eugene Evans Collias Papers (1956-1962), Geisel Library, University of California, San Diego.
