Developing projects
Joseph Michael is a visual artist and photographer based in Auckland, New Zealand. Ninawá Inu Huni Kui is President of the Federation of Huni Kui People in Brazil. In this video, they discuss the need for humans to connect with nature and how art and science can help make these connections.
Ninawá Inu Huni Kui’s comments have been translated from Portuguese to English.
Questions for discussion
Joseph mentions that, when you reconnect with nature, you value it more. Do you think this is true? Why or why not?
Do you think art is an important part of conservation?
What other art or communication engages you in conservation issues?
Transcript
Joseph Michael
Visual artist and photographer
Our lives are increasingly dominated by these urban environments. We’re surrounded by concrete, we’re surrounded by cities, and when you go out and have that experience of going into the forest – reconnecting with nature – you start to value it more.
Yeah, what’s my role as an artist? It’s always idea driven, right. If I start with the concept, start with what I want to achieve, then we apply whatever technology is possible or necessary to achieve that.
How to get large-scale versions of nature in front of your eyes – there’s modes of doing that with projection, with ghost screens. Ideally, it’s a holographic style environment.
Basically, we’re trying to scan maybe the essence of the tree. One of the cool things you can do with the technology, once we scan it, is we can take you up into the canopy, and then the other thing we’re experimenting with is how to sort of understand and map the root system.
Augmented reality to me was the most pertinent way to connect one to one with that, and augmented reality, in particular, as opposed to VR – because I think VR tends to be quite insular – and I like the shared experience, so the ability to be able to have this one-to-one scale holographic style installation – even though it’s not a true holographic – but be able to see other people’s interactions with the forest, and then you’re connecting with other people in this space.
Ninawá Inu Huni Kui
President of the Federation of Huni Kui People
For us, trees are not simply wood and leaf. There is a context, a story that comes from the beginning of our existence with these teachings being passed on from generation to generation.
Joseph Michael
The thing that drives me as an artist is the ability to learn more, and the integration of scientists within my work has been a really massive leap in the evolution of my work and get that exchange of understanding. As an artist, I like to sort of take those scientific tools and put a visual lens on them. And we started with lidar and some multi-spectrum scans, and it was actually through this, the changes that we’ve had on COVID, that we’ve moved right into photogrammetry, and that’s sort of where we’ve ended up.
I think that’s the important thing as an artist – we’re really good at the why questions. We can sort of start presenting some of these ideas. Hopefully, we can form a connection and start to, you know, have more discussion around it.
Raised Up Sky is about connecting to something greater than yourself.
Ninawá Inu Huni Kui
It helps because they are people who somehow become “multipliers” of information. And it’s something that the planet needs today. Do a new human re-education. Make people feel inside their hearts once again.
