Making the Invisible Visible

McKnight Foundation fellow Christine Baeumler works locally and globally to better the planet.

Christine Baeumler, on assignment in the Galapagos Islands.

Image credit: Photo courtesy Christine Baeumler

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Editor’s note: The McKnight Foundation has a long tradition of awarding artists grants in order to give them greater creative freedom. The foundation announced earlier this year that they were giving 38 $25,000 grants to artists to help further their work. Writers for metromag.com will introduce readers to some of those artists all week. This is the first article in the series.

Christine Baeumler says art has the ability to make the invisible visible. There’s no better case for this than her own work.

Described as a “public environmental artist,” Baeumler has used art to shine a spotlight on everything from Minnesota waterways to the Galapagos Islands, the Australian rain forest and the Great Barrier Reef.

She has videotaped wildlife to create stunning montages, created paintings of aquatic life, helped develop park accents that highlight their natural qualities, and participated in the reclamation of the Swede Hollow Historical Forest in St. Paul.

Baeumler also serves as the artist-in-residence for the Capitol Region Watershed District, which works to protect and improve water quality along a 40-mile stretch of the Mississippi River.

The job is unique, perhaps unprecedented, and may seem like a rather odd endeavor. But Baeumler says the role is a rare opportunity to get involved with a project at conception, rather than having to work with a finished product.

“I’m an imbedded artist right at the beginning of the project rather than just creating a sculpture at the end,” Baeumler says. “I can have a dialogue with engineers and scientists. It’s more satisfying, more responsive in some ways.”

Ultimately, the goal is to capture people’s attention and to create awareness about scientific issues and ecological problems, says Baeumler, who also teaches an Art and Social Engagement course at the University of Minnesota.

Another mission: to show people what their lifestyles have an impact, both locally and globally.

“The local impact is more apparent, and something we have more control over,” she says. “But it’s easy to forget about the places that are far from us.”

With her McKnight grant, Baeumler says she is considering the construction of a green roof at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

“It’s trying to make visible the system of capturing rain water and re-constituting the landscape—using the rain we have in an ecologically beneficial way,” she says.

Once again, Baeumler is making the invisible visible. We’re glad to play witness.