About

The BioPresence art exhibition was organized by a group of faculty and staff at the Ohio State University as part of a Framework Project Grant. It was a campus-wide, interdisciplinary project of events, data collecting, map-making, and social media hashtagging. Rather than focus on “place-making” for just humans on campus, we wondered: As campus becomes ever more densely populated, and a restored Olentangy River attracts more wildlife, how can we know who is here and learn better ways of sharing space with other-than-human animals? We looked to the wonderment and wisdom of intertwined symbiosis that makes the Ohio State University Campus a unique urban ecosystem that involves human and non-human species.

To encourage participation in this question, we:

Created a hashtag campaign #AnimalOSU that anyone on campus could contribute to – or follow – on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr and Google+. From the Instagram images, we created a crowd-sourced photo and video map showing locations of animals spotted on campus.

Organized events, such as a bat listening workshop, a bird watching workshop, student photo contest and video screenings, and a visit by animal musician/philosopher David Rothenberg.

Produced a video to help explain the project.

Invited staff, students and faculty to write about their experiences with animals on campus, for publication on our blog.

Invited campus planners to an open discussion, “Framing Campus as an Ecosystem”.

Created themed assignments for students in the Art and Technology courses in the Department of Art, so they could participate in the juried exhibition.

Commissioned new work from local professional artists whose work relates to the theme of BioPresence. We presented the work in Hopkins Hall gallery and also teamed up with the independent Mote Galleries to present work in their Short North locations.

Teamed up with the Borror Lab of Bioacoustics to create a juried, international call for artists to create sound art compositions. The BioAcoustic Urbanscapes exhibition was the outcome.

Gathered data on campus animals using various methods: audio data from a songmeter, image and video data from wildlife cameras, and personal accounts from campus surveillance camera personnel.

And finally, produced this website to document some of the many the artworks displayed in the BioPresence Exhibition.

BioPresence exhibition poster

BioPresence exhibition map

We thank the Integrated Physical Planning Liaison Group at the Ohio State University for supporting our work.

Project leader is Amy Youngs youngs.6@osu.edu. Full project team is here.