Newton & Helen Mayer Harrison
Newton & Helen Mayer Harrison have worked for over thirty years with biologists, ecologists and urban planners to initiate collaborative dialogues to uncover ideas and solutions which support biodiversity and community development.
They just gave a talk at UC Irvine (also broadcasted at UCLA) as part of a biweekly seminar I am part of on human complex systems. Their talk was titled “Public Culture and Sustainable Practices: Peninsula Europe from an ecodiversity perspective, posing questions to Complexity Scientists”. They introduced their work on Peninsula Europe, focusing on watershed restoration and global warming, Future Garden, on endangered meadows, the Serpentine Lattice, on the reclamation and preservation of the forests of Pacific Northwest, and the the Green Heart Vision, an urban planning project that prevented construction of 650,000 houses in the Groene Hart area in Holland.
The Harrisons are artists. But they use art to drive ecological and cultural change. Their work necessarily blends urban planning, sociology, anthropology, ecology, biology, and poetry for the study of human, cultural and ecological systems and their interaction. They are historians, diplomats, ecologists, investigators, emissaries and art activists.
And their talks are fun to watch. They are old school. Yes, a bit clumsy when using digital devices. And they talk a lot at the same time, interrupting each other - it’s like a talk show. But their words are beautiful.
When asked about his political views in the light of U.S. presidential elections, Newton Harrison referred to politics as the “lowest order of collective behavior”. Genius.
(parts in italic are taken from here)
