Linking sediment and sentiment: on observing a sci-art project

To observe art and science in interaction offered a great opportunity for me as cultural anthropologist to learn about the production of climate knowledge. Like ethnographers, artists entered the world of science, observed climate scientists and participated in their daily routines. They dissected elements of the scientific process and focused on science as a social practice. For scientists and artists, a process of “self-identification via the other” [Kramer, 1993] was set into motion. The artwork reflects this process by “mimicking” scientific procedures and by linking human sentiment and material sediments. Introducing the anthropological imagery of the trickster, I suggest that the project challenges a basic modern constitution — the separation of nature and culture — and brings the debate about climate change back into society.