6&6 Art and Science

The 6&6 Project is a collaboration between six artists and six scientists whose work focuses on the Sonoran Desert. Through the 6&6 Project, I was partnered with an amazing installation artist from Arizona State University, Heather Green. For our project, we conducted field work in Sonora, Mexico on an isolated and little-studied population of chuckwalla lizards (Sauromalus atar). We used DNA to explore how genetically different this small population is from neighboring lizard populations and how that makes them more vulnerable to landscape changes such as roads, houses, ORV trails and other human influences. We worked together on a piece that presents themes of isolation and landscape connectivity through a mixed-media art installation, addressing both deep and current timescales. Pieces in the work included DNA sequences etched in mica and a book made from plants that the lizards eat. An exhibition of all of the collected works for this project opened at the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Spring 2018.