Today’s conversation between Thalia Field and David Naimon, moderated by Anne de Marcken, was recorded in February as part of the Pacific Northwest College of Art’s Visual Arts low residency MFA program. Thalia and David discuss and explore their pieces within the anthology Creature Needs: Writers Respond to the Science of Animal Conservation, where each writer was given a scientific study to engage with and create art in relation to. As a result, side-blotched lizards, boreal toads and the green cutthroat trout all help make up the cross-species chorus of today’s conversation, one that isn’t just about making art in relation to science, but also about interrogating, through art-making, the assumptions baked into the scientific frame, and using art to reveal the unexamined stories hidden within that frame. Looking at other non-normative modes of scientific inquiry, ones where the line isn’t so bright between art and science, nor the subjective and the so-called objective, Thalia, David and Anne explore the various possibilities and pitfalls for art-makers and writers when engaging with the more-than-human world.

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