Laura Ahola-Young

The COVID epidemic led me to question what it means to breathe and to understand oxygen. The impact on our health suddenly and collectively raised awareness that climate change is altering how we relate to other species-specifically bacteria and viruses. It became clear- to study oxygen meant to also investigate carbon’s role in life on this planet. I dedicated my drawings and paintings to this examination, hoping I could provide context and imagery for the complicated science of climate change. Through extensive readings of plant science, I landed back into my very own field of scholarship. In the humanities, an emergent field of Critical Plant Studies is leading to questions about the role of language, human activity and ethics within ecosystems of the vegetal. My work as an artist is now involved with this discourse. I specifically focus on our human understanding of, and relationship to, living organisms such as plants, algae, fungi and microbes.

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