Join us for a thought-provoking conversation exploring how climate change is transforming the fragile forest ecosystems of the American West. U-M Research Scientist & Lecturer Dr. Stella Cousins will share insights from her fieldwork, while artist Catherine Chalmers offers a creative lens on the natural world. Moderated by Institute for the Humanities Arts Curator Amanda Krugliak, this dialogue blends science, art, and storytelling to illuminate the urgent challenges within these threatened landscapes.

Chalmer's exhibition Conifer Trees, Bark Beetles, and Fire is on view at the Institute for the Humanities Gallery Sept. 11 - Oct. 24. For complete details and more related events visit https://lsa.umich.edu/humanities/gallery/current-exhibitions/catherine-chalmers.html.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS:

Catherine Chalmers is the Jean Yokes Woodhead Visiting Artist at the Institute for the Humanities. She holds a BS in engineering from Stanford University and an MFA in painting from the Royal College of Art, London. She has exhibited her artwork around the world, including MoMA P.S.1; MassMoca; The Drawing Center; Kunsthalle Vienna; The Today Art Museum, Beijing; among others. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Washington Post, The Brooklyn Rail, Time Out New York, ArtNews, Artforum, and on PBS, CNN, NPR, and the BBC. Two books have been published on her work: Food Chain (Aperture 2000) and American Cockroach (Aperture 2004). Her video “Safari” won Best Experimental Short at SXSW Film Festival in 2008. In 2010 Chalmers received a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in NYC.

Dr. Stella Cousins is an ecosystem ecologist interested in understanding how and why forests change. She uses patterns measured in trees and forests such as growth, mortality, and community dynamics to reveal how ecosystems respond to human demands and disturbances. Her current research focuses on the drivers of tree mortality in California forests and the transformations that can be expected in ecosystems that experience rapid change. In earlier research she has examined forest carbon processes, air pollution impacts to montane forests, provision of watershed services, and the management of vegetated cultural landscapes. Her work leverages comprehensive surveys conducted by the USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program, long-term monitoring, and measurements ranging from individual tree rings to whole forest structures. Dr. Cousins is broadly interested in how landscapes can be sustainably managed for multiple benefits, which often involves collaborating on multi-disciplinary teams and investing in place-based data collection. She is especially interested in social-environmental problems facing the Western United States. Prior to joining SEAS, Dr. Cousins was an Assistant Professor at California Polytechnic State University and a postdoctoral scholar at UC Berkeley. She completed her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley and was a graduate fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC).

Amanda Krugliak is a curator and artist known for performative, conceptual, and experiential installations, in charge of programming for the Institute for the Humanities Gallery since 2009. In 2012, she co-created the internationally recognized installation State of Exception with artist Richard Barnes and U-M anthropologist Jason De León based upon De León’s Undocumented Migration Project. She is frequently a guest lecturer and leads workshops on curating scholarship and the gallery as a social justice practice.