All are welcome to join us on Thursday April 20, Noon - 1 p.m. at the CU Natural History Museum for this in-person event hosted by the Office for Outreach and Engagement collaboration with the CU Natural History Museum, CU Engage, INSTAAR, and Boulder County Arts Alliance.

Register here. Light refreshments will be served!  If you have a class or meeting that overlaps with a Coffee & Conversations event, please don't hesitate to join us late and feel free to bring a sack lunch as well. 

This event features two artist and scientist teams from the Colorado Art Science Environment (CASE) Fellows who will discuss how their collaborations with each other and communities around Colorado tell the story of climate change from multiple perspectives and modalities, and will feature an exhibition at the CO State Capitol May 19 - Oct 16, 2023. 

Making the Invisible Visible: Groundwater in the San Luis Valley

• Jocelyn Catterson, CASE fellow artist and educator, San Luis Valley 
• Holly Barnard, CASE fellow scientist, CU Boulder Associate Dean of Research, Professor, Geography, Hydrologic Sciences and INSTAAR fellow 

Catterson and Barnard will discuss their collaboration for Making the Invisible Visible, a project and artwork series that explores the ways San Luis Valley communities are experiencing and responding to issues tied to groundwater. The paintings represent an ongoing conversation between the artist, scientists, and the community on how to “make visible” the connections between changes in snowmelt and runoff, agriculture in the valley, and the aquifer below. The art illustrates the complexity and interconnectedness of multiple data sets and the community’s lived experience through varied artistic perspectives transcending the limits of what we are capable of seeing on the valley floor. 

Beetle Kill in Monarch Pass: Symptom or Disease?

• Beth Johnston, MFA, CASE fellow artist, Salida and 
• Kendi Davies, Associate Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EBIO) 

“All of this is infected; we just don’t see it yet.” This is how a local forest ranger described the trees to Johnston as they surveyed the horizon from Monarch Pass. Just a few years later, these trees now stand as skeletons, limb after limb blackened and dry.  

The climate crisis is often invisible. We don’t sense or see two degrees of warming or notice the increase in carbon dioxide. Beetle kill, however, presents a moment of seeing: an indicator; perhaps a symptom pointing to a larger disease?

Symptom or Disease, is an ongoing art project that explores the cascading impacts and underlying conditions of beetle kill on Monarch Pass. Through various photographic and material methods, the resulting artwork translates scientific research into alternative visual form and represents countless conversations with Arkansas River Valley community members and local forest managers. While the project explores the realities of a specific beetle in a specific location during a specific time, it is also an invitation to consider what lies beyond what we currently see.

About Coffee and Conversations:
The Coffee & Conversations series explore themes in community-engaged scholarship—from the language we use to how we build relationships with community partners. These informal events are designed for conversation and opportunities to workshop ideas. We learn together with help from colleagues across campus, as well as staff from the Office for Outreach and Engagement and CU Engage. Those new to outreach and community-engaged scholarship and veteran practitioners are welcome. The series is hosted by the Office for Outreach and Engagement. Please contact Lisa Schwartz with questions.