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NEST Studio for the Arts recently unveiled new public artwork on the exterior of the CASE building and at . The murals, which are accessible and visible from socially-distanced, outside environments, will be on display through December. 

For more information on the work featured as part of the NEST Fall Gallery Showcase visit the .

Pictured: Visiting Artist Nina Elder works on her crowd-sourced piece, PERMANENT/TRANSITORY, in collaboration with NEST and the Dairy Arts Center.

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Happy Earth Day!

As environmental Buffs may know, this year’s celebration is extra special, as it’s the 50th anniversary of the annual event, which was first celebrated in 1970. Head to the CU Â鶹ӰԺ Environmental Center’s website to see how our campus is celebrating virtually. 

CMCI has long been a hub of environmentally-focused research, reporting, outreach and creative work. This work takes place through several of our centers and initiatives, including the Center for Environmental Journalism, which has facilitated in-depth environmental reporting since its establishment in 1992; , which provides increased coverage of Western water issues; the Grand Challenge-funded Nature, Environment, Science and Technology Studio for the Arts (NEST), which combines aesthetic practices and scientific research; and the Center for Communication and Democratic Engagement, which includes focuses on climate justice and community engagement, and more. Throughout the college, we’re proud of our multimedia storytellers, reporters, researchers and activists working to create awareness, engagement and positive change. 

Here’s our top 10 Earth Day reads––in order of publication date––featuring CMCI students, faculty, fellows and staff. 

• Earlier this month, Department of Communication Associate Professor Phaedra Pezzullo co-hosted the webinar "Power Dialog: Climate Solutions for Colorado," which featured remarks from Gov. Jared Polis. You can still watch a , or read the top five takeaways, written by alumnus and CU science writer Kelsey Simpkins (MJour’18). You can also read about Pezzullo’s work with CU’s Just Transition Collaborative in our CMCI Now story, “#±Ę´Ç·É±đ°ů±đ»ĺµţ˛â°Őłó±đ±Ę±đ´Ç±č±ô±đ.” (March 30, 2020)

• In this piece for the Colorado Sun, CEJ Scripps Fellow Sharon Udasin between the city of Denver and San Luis, Mexico, in their efforts to both restore the Colorado River’s flow and create greenspaces to connect the two cities. (Feb. 24, 2020)

• As actors like Joaquin Phoenix, Jane Fonda and Leonardo DiCaprio continue to speak out about a range of climate issues, Department of Media Studies Scholar-in-Residence Hunter Vaughan says their own industry takes a massive toll on the environment. Check out this CU Â鶹ӰԺ Today article by Lisa Marshall––CU’s senior science writer and a master’s student in the Department of Journalism––to learn why Vaughan says that pollution may be “Hollywood’s Dirtiest Secret.” (Jan 27, 2020)

• This year, former CEJ Scripps Fellow David Mayfield’s project, as the world’s largest environmental survey. Read about it in this CEJ article by Julia Barnes, a master’s student in the Department of Journalism. (Feb. 14, 2020)

• While reporting for KGNU, Department of Journalism master’s student Alejandra Wilcox where she spoke with Water Commissioner Scott Hummer, who is responsible for overseeing water usage amid increasingly tight regulations. (Dec. 18, 2019)

• In this longform piece for , former Scripps Fellow Stephen Miller examined the tension between Arizona’s growing aridity and the economic forces its farmers are enduring because of it. (Nov. 12, 2019)

• Scripps Fellow Antonia Juhasz shined a spotlight on the activism and racial inequalities in “Cancer Alley,” a toxic 85-mile stretch in Louisiana lined with petrochemical facilities. (Oct. 23, 2019)

• Writing for , former Scripps Fellow Peter Brannen argued forcefully against calling the age in which we live “the anthropocene”––a term coined by scientists to describe the geological time humans have inhabited, and re-shaped, the earth. (Aug. 13, 2019)

• Here in Â鶹ӰԺ, alumna Moe Clark (MJour’19), now a reporter at the Colorado Sun, at the National Center for Atmospheric Research is one of many in a nationwide network scientists are using to measure the effects of ground-level ozone. (Aug. 12, 2019)

• While reporting for Mongabay, former Scripps Fellow and current CMCI Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team member Chris Lett explored how In addition to writing and reporting this longform piece, Lett contributed photos of Ethiopian women carrying huge bundles of fuelwood on their backs. (March 20, 2019)

   Bonus! Last year, Department of Communication PhD student and fellow graduate students Robert Buehler and Mathew Sharples collaborated with NEST to create a Campus Field Guide. Today, in hopes that people can use it to explore their own backyards. (April 22, 2020)

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Assistant Professor Erin Espelie––along with Natural Hazards Center Director Lori Peek, Art and Art History Assistant Professor Brianne Cohen, and Director of the Center for Native and Indigenous Studies Andrew Cowell––has been awarded a $225,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a Sawyer Seminar at CU Â鶹ӰԺ on the comparative study of cultures entitled, Deep Horizons: Making Visible an Unseen Spectrum of Ecological Casualties & Prospects. This is the first year CU Â鶹ӰԺ has participated in this competition, making the award an especially remarkable accomplishment. 

As co-faculty director of the Nature, Environment, Science and Technology Studio for the Arts (NEST), Espelie also co-curated the exhibit Documenting Change: Our Climate (Past, Present, and Future) at the CU Art Museum. In addition, she had solo film shows in London, Montreal and New Mexico and was featured in Sublimity as Document, published in 2019 by Oxford University Press.

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NEST Embryonic Exhibition

Opens: Sept. 21

Viewable from: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays and by appointment through Dec. 21.

Location: Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE)
1725 Euclid Ave.

A new Â鶹ӰԺ exhibit opening Friday, Sept. 21 highlights the symbiosis of artistic and scientific thinking.

, the premiere exhibit for the , includes paintings, sculpture and multimedia such as polymeric “embryos,” an alternative barn swallow habitat and silk batiks created by a geologist and artist to demonstrate the fragility of the barrier islands.

This exhibit, a free public event, opens Friday at 11 a.m. with a welcome event at noon and includes tours that will run until 5 p.m. in the Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE) at 1725 Euclid Ave. Embryonic will also be viewable from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays and by appointment through Dec. 21.

“NEST combines artistic practice and scientific research to explore our common and disparate ways of observing, recording, experimenting and knowing,” said Tara Knight, an associate professor in the College of Media, Communication and Information’s .

Launched with CU Â鶹ӰԺ Grand Challenge funding, NEST is led by Knight and co-investigator Erin Espelie, an assistant professor in DCMP and the Department of Cinema Studies. Joining them is scholar-in-residence Jorge Perez-Gallego, an astronomer, designer and educator with a Ph.D. in astronomy and an M.F.A. in design. 

They are working with more than 20 institutional and individual partners—including BioFrontiers Institute, the CU Museum of Natural History, the CU Art Museum and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)—to exhibit work; create new courses; conduct cross-disciplinary research; and co-host exhibits, events and workshops across campus and beyond.

NEST recently awarded graduate student fellowships to nine pairs of artists and scientists who will work on joint projects that will be displayed at the exhibit. For example, Camila Friedman-Gerliczb, an MFA candidate in Art and Art History, and Aaron Lamplugh, a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, incorporated porous materials such as activated carbon into ceramic surfaces to create simple and elegant air-cleaning art pieces that can be used in nail salons and other toxic indoor environments.

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