Art and science residency, a new trend in natural environment

Marti Johnston is the director of the art residency Tortuga Escondida that operates in Akumal, Mexico, since 2015.

Designed as a residency center, the space focuses on hosting groups, not only of artists, but also of students working in the areas of marine biology, environmental conservation, and science, because the center is located in a rich but threatened ecosystem.

“Here, we're in this jungle, it's known as the Selva Maya, so this is part of the Yucatán Peninsula. It's all jungle. We start with about a few meters of coast, dunes, goes mangrove, and then jungle, and the jungle goes all the way west. So, we're about a mile in, it is still virgin forest, and we have a number of endangered and critically endangered plants and animals here,” explains Marti Johnston.

The first experience of hosting scientists was organized with the Operation Wallacea, which gathered students from universities and high schools to spend the summer abroad and study sciences. Among the proposed activities, students participated in field trips, data studies, surveys, science programming, and many more. “And then, we have other groups that have begun to arrive as an outgrowth of that, still focusing mostly on the marine biology and conservation and environmental sciences,” explains the director.

In her opinion, the work realized by these groups are of most importance as they reveal and monitor the advancement of global warming, in parallel to mass tourism, and its impact on the local fauna and flora. “And art is one thing, but seeing the science of what we're losing every year is really important. And these students seeing this, taking the data studies, is very important, and also, they are bearing witness to the effect of what their holiday family trip might really cause in terms of environmental impact,” confides Marti Johnston.

In the last decade, the number of residencies that include sciences and technologies has increased, which can be explained by the rise of environmental awareness, notably in the younger generations, and their will to find solutions to local and global issues. “We are a microcosm of what is happening {…} and so they're really seeing it and documenting it,” concludes the director.