Ceramic Habitat for Seabird Restoration
Designing Ecology is an ongoing and innovative multidisciplinary partnership between Oikonos, a conservation science nonprofit, California College of the Arts (CCA), and MoreLab, an art and design studio. Beginning in the spring of 2010 and returning in the spring of 2015, two interdisciplinary classes of CCA students collaborated with Oikonos ecologists and MoreLab designers on a restoration science project to provide safe breeding habitat for seabirds in peril. The work focuses on seabirds (Rhinoceros and Cassin’s Auklets) that live underground in degraded soils on Año Nuevo Island, a state reserve and one of only a few islands off the coast of California. These nesting spaces need to be stable, durable for thirty-plus years and made from sustainable materials—clay meets these criteria and is a vast improvement over wood and plastic used in past projects. The restoration studies in progress include quantifying how well the birds breed in ninety ceramic modules vs. natural soil burrows and documenting the heating and cooling properties of multiple ceramic designs. Applying the scientific method to document the value of ceramic modules for seabird restoration will lead to acceptance by the conservation science community and ultimately provide a superior solution to help more seabirds.
The longevity of the partnership is grounded in the successful results since 2010, in the creative leadership of CCA Chair of Ceramics Nathan Lynch, Matthew Passmore of MoreLab, ecologists at Oikonos, and in the facilitation by the ENGAGE at CCA program housed in CCA's Center for Art and Public Life.
Ecologist
Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge
Michelle Hester is a founder and the executive director of Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge, a non-profit organization studying and protecting imperiled ecosystems through scientific and artistic collaborations. She brings twenty-five years of research and applied conservation experience throughout the Pacific. Her research focuses on island habitat restoration, seabird conservation, and marine pollution with an emphasis on transdisciplinary approaches. She lives in Waimanalo, Hawai‘i, and works throughout the Pacific.
Chair and Associate Professor, Ceramics Program
California College of the Arts
Nathan Lynch was born and raised in Pasco, Washington, an agricultural community twenty miles downriver from the Hanford Nuclear Power Plant. The challenges of this environmental contradiction gave Lynch an acute sense of location and deep appreciation for irony. In the five formative years after graduation Lynch worked as the prop master for a community theatre, the effects of which are being realized in his current body of work. His concerns for political, environmental, and social issues are filtered through notions of absurdity, simple-craft fabrication, and the dramatic devices of storytelling.
As a sculptor and performance artist, Lynch has made collaboration and experimentation major components of his practice. At the University of Southern California, Lynch studied with Ken Price. He later earned an MFA at Mills College. Lynch is an associate professor and Ceramics Program Chair at California College of the Arts. He is represented by Rena Bransten Projects.
Artist and Founder
Morelab, LLC and Rebar Art & Design Studio
Matthew Passmore is a conceptual artist, curator, teacher, and public space advocate operating in a global context. Best known as the original founder of the Rebar Art & Design Studio, Passmore has generated the creative concepts for many popular Rebar projects, including PARK(ing) Day, an annual worldwide art event he has led since its inception in 2006. In 2014, Passmore formed MoreLab, a new creative endeavor specifically focused on public art projects, museum exhibitions, and innovative public spaces. His recently completed projects include Urbanauts, an eighteen-month artist fellowship at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, exhibitions at Make It Louder Beijing, the 2012 Istanbul Design Biennial, and Kaleidoscape, a three-year social sculpture project at the Berkeley Art Museum. Passmore has taught a variety of courses at the San Francisco Art Institute and the California College of the Arts (CCA).
