Naturalists of the Long Now is a collaborative photography-based project that breaks down barriers between art and science and creates a dialogue between text and image, landscape and viewer, expert and novice, past, present, and future. Since 2015, Ian van Coller has been collaborating with scientists to make art that challenges viewers to think about the vast scales of geologic time through scientific analysis of various planetary archives, such as glaciers, trees, sediments, and fossils.
This project was initially inspired by the 10,000 Year Clock Project of the Long Now Foundation, the mission of which is to "foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years." Van Coller’s talk will focus on his collaborations with scientists working in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana to those searching for the oldest ice ever found on earth deep in the glaciers of Antarctica.
A professor of photography at Montana State University since 2006, van Coller is a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow whose work belongs to the Philadelphia Art Museum, the Getty Research Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, and The Iziko South African National Gallery.
Born in 1970 in Johannesburg, van Coller grew up in South Africa during a time of great political turmoil. These formative years became integral to the subject matter van Coller has pursued throughout his artistic career.
His work has addressed complex cultural issues of both the apartheid and post-apartheid eras, especially with regards to cultural identity in the face of globalization, and the economic realities of every-day life. Since 2012 his work has focused on environmental issues related to climate change and deep time. These projects have centered on the production of large-scale artist books, as well as direct collaborations with paleo-climatologists.
Van Coller moved to the U.S. in 1992 and holds a BFA from Arizona State University and an MFA from the University of New Mexico.
Learn more about his work at www.ianvancoller.com or on Instagram at @ianvancoller .
