Environmental issues in the 21st century, including loss of biodiversity, habitat loss, species extinction, and the effects of climate change are at a critical juncture. In the early 1990’s, this researcher began her journey in developing arts-based research methods to study ecological systems, recognizing the need to address these problems in as many ways as they are experienced and understood. Scientists such as Galileo, Merian, and Darwin understood the value of drawing to gain scientific knowledge. Today, research in neuroscience recognizes the practices of “drawing to learn” and “thinking out loud in pictures” as cognitive processes whereby our brain is constructing knowledge. We can acknowledge that artmaking acts as a language translator and makes information exchange possible. Art-based ecological research methods, such as Art-Based Perceptual Ecology, developed by this researcher, follow strict and replicable protocols. The visuals -- the drawings -- are the data. This researcher will report on preliminary results from a collaborative biodiversity inventory that combines quantitative and art-based research data.
Results/Conclusions
The Citizen Artist app (CA) offers a tool for our contemporary toolkit to find collaborative solutions for complex environmental problems. From an art historical context, the term Citizen Artist is influenced by the work of Joseph Beuys, German artist and social activist. In the 1970’s Beuys created the term "social sculpture" based on his concept that every aspect of life could be approached creatively resulting in the potential for everyone to transform society. Aligning with Beuys’ thinking, this researcher developed the Citizen Artist app, a crowdsourced science research app that collects art-based ecological research data. The CA is developed with high standards for quality control, documentation, clear cataloging, secure archiving, and sharing capabilities for public access to art-based ecological research data. Like citizen or participatory science projects, the CA is grounded by training for volunteers, extensive research in the field, observation, asking good questions, experimental repetition, collecting data via mobile technology at a local scale, and sharing results in support of scientific research at a broader context. The Citizen Artist, a unique research methodology and technology platform, empowers citizens who might not otherwise participate in crowdsourced science to get involved, with the potential of positively transforming our current environmental problems.