Arctic Above – A Team Shrub Photography Exhibition

Arctic Above – online photography exhibition

Our scientific research expeditions to the Arctic often reveal dramatic landscapes, exciting wildlife encounters and lots of natural beauty. We are always keen to widely share those experiences, and one way to bring the Arctic closer to people is through photography. This year, we are continuing our science & art outreach work (you can read more about our outreach events at the Edinburgh Science Festival last year here) by organising a second photography exhibition. This time, in addition to the physical exhibition, we also have an online exhibition, so that anyone with internet access can get a glimpse of Arctic environments, wildlife and ecosystem changes.

We present photographs of Arctic tundra landscapes and the plants and wildlife that inhabit them, captured as a part of scientific research expeditions to the rapidly warming Arctic. Images are captured from above using drones, helicopters or planes and on the ground as we hike out to our research sites. Some of these images are part of scientific datasets used to model the 3D structure of the tundra environment.

This work represents the interface between science and art, where the process of data collection has produced imagery that communicates the reality of global change and captures the patterns and beauty of remote Arctic ecosystems.

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You can explore our photography exhibition online here!

 

Science, outreach and coding galore in April

This April has been full to the brim with everything I love about science and academia – an art-science collaboration to give science outreach a creative spin, a conference to learn about cool research and meet new people, a coding workshop to spread our love for efficient coding practices and start new collaborations, a drone symposium to learn about the role of drone technology in advancing ecology, and finally fieldwork across beautiful woodlands in Scotland.

Team Shrub at the Edinburgh Science Festival

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I was very happy to help with the awesome outreach events Team Shrub organised for the Edinburgh International Science Festival. A great collaboration between scientists, science communicators (James Howie and the ASCUS Lab) and artists (Simon Sloan and Archie Crofton) resulted in a wonderful collection of photographs, data visualisations and fieldwork artifacts under the theme of “Arctic from Above” – Team Shrub’s first exhibition! You can still check out the exhibition in the Summerhall War Memorial Library before it closes on the 12th May!

Continue reading “Science, outreach and coding galore in April”

Out of sight, out of mind

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My opinion piece on conservation issues in Australia’s Outback recently got published in the BIOSPHERE magazine! I first pondered Outback conservation challenges during the Conservation Science course I took in the last year of my degree, for which I wrote an opinion piece about the destructive effects of invasive species on marsupials such as the yellow-footed rock wallaby. Since I can’t resist the opportunity to make things look pretty and be more creative with scientific assignments, I made mine look like a magazine article – thanks to some great encouragement afterwards, telling me that my opinion piece could become a real magazine article, I decided to pursue this direction, and here it is!

You can read the opinion piece here.

How can we deliver conservation outcomes in areas that are out of sight and out of mind for so many? Recognising the importance of the communities that have always seen the value of the vast interior of Australia, and re-connecting them with their land, can empower people not only to identify environmental degradation, but also to actively engage in mitigating it.