Can a Piano Sing a Birdsong?
The French composer Olivier Messaien attempted to reproduce the calls of 80 European birds in a three-hour piece for solo piano. Did he succeed?
Category: Exhibits
Knowing Prairies: An Essay in Comic Form
What can the world’s first restored prairie tell us about living with the land? The University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum inspires one artist to reflect on ecological restoration and what we call nature.
The Art of Anxious Environments
Through art, Yayoi Kusama takes an extreme challenge, mental illness, and connects to millions, inviting viewers into the curious and profound beauty of her interior world. Encountering Kusama’s art inspired the author of this essay to reach through her own “a wall of silence” and use art to express her anxious environment.
What Would States Look Like If They Made Sense?
A new interactive web map allows you to explore a reimagined geography of the United States based on socially connected commuter megaregions generated using big data.
Expressing Extinction: A Conversation with Anna Lehner
During this period of rapid political change, glass and Morse code provide mediums for reflection on the environment and extinction.
Excavating the Private Sphere
A photo essay of mid-century domestic relics open a window on a woman’s hard, heroic, uncelebrated life.
Beautiful Resilience: Conversations after an Earthquake
A storyteller’s account of Manabu Ikeda’s pen-and-ink commemoration of Japan’s earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in 2011.
At the Confluence of Art and Science
Ecologists and artists work together to give voice to Wisconsin waterways while a social scientist observes their collaboration.
Snapshots of the Mississippi
Members of the Edge Effects editorial board share a selection of photos from CHE’s recent Place-Based Workshop on the Mississippi River.
Learning Cartography; or, a Gallery of Awesome Maps
Exploring family farms, racial inequality, sea monsters, and much more, student mapmakers gain new understandings of place.
