Students from two different classes, “Introduction to Art and Ecology” and “Biodiversity, Creative Practice, Justice,” explored nature journaling as a practice of visual and literary skills, culminating in a showcase beginning last week.
The exhibit, titled Nature Journaling as Environmental Pedagogy, featured spreads of pages from students’ nature journals that they worked on over the semester.
Subhankar Banerjee, the University of New Mexico professor of both classes and founder and director of the Center for Environmental Arts and Humanities, said that he felt the exercise was necessary in a time where students are living in “the digital space.”
“To have an alternative outlet to engage, not only as a class project, but for their own life, and their own journey of learning at UNM,” Banerjee said.
Each student was given a basic sketchbook and a handful of colored pencils to begin their work.
The exhibition opened on April 10 at the UNM Fine Arts and Design Library, where journal pages are still displaying students’ work on the wall.
Banerjee said that unlike when he joined UNM 10 years ago, he observed that student’s attention spans and engagement has declined.
“Teens, as well as young adults, are spending increasingly more time on the internet,” Banerjee said. “If indeed this little exercise has helped them to engage with the physical, biological world and their daily experience, and in turn they have expressed that so powerfully and beautifully, meaningfully, critically, on their simple nature journal pages, it’s encouraging in this very moment when a lot of teachers and a lot of students are struggling whether it’s with attention span or so on.”
The nature journal exhibit combines many specific themes, with the intro class focusing on walking, seeing, listening, smelling, touching and tasting and the biodiversity class highlighting overlooked species, multi-species coexistence kinship, caretaking and justice, Banerjee said.
UNM junior Amber Lucero contributed to the exhibit.
“I did one of them on a trip to the Bosque, and what I was hearing while I was there, it was a windy day. I wrote about the reeds hitting against each other and then the sound of dead leaves as I walked around,” Lucero said. “Taking the time to really write down or think about what you’re actually hearing and experiencing, it has value in the finished product.”
Banerjee shared the experience of master’s student Lila Steffan, who explored the experience of a moth in her art studio.
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“She just saw this dead moth in her studio and that sparked a much deeper exploration into moths, trying to understand who this moth is and clearly that moth was a neighbor sharing the same studio, the moth had already passed away and she honored the moth,” Banerjee said.
The exhibit places nature journaling within an academic setting, stating that nature journaling began as early as the 16th century as an essential practice of naturalists that would inform both their scientific studies and artistic explorations, but they only focus on nature, without getting into elements like cultural, social, political and economic.
Banerjee aims to combine nature and culture, he said.
“How do we revitalize nature journaling which has a deep centuries old history into the current moment and make it relevant for university level education, so it becomes pedagogy at a university, where we are bringing in these cultural elements in nature,” Banerjee said.
Leila Chapa is the social media and photo editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at socialmedia@dailylobo.com or on X @lchapa06
Leila Chapa is the social media editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at socialmedia@dailylobo.com or on X @lchapa06
