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Nanette Shaw
The horseshoe crab, or limulus polyphemus, has existed for 350 million years, at least 200 million of them as a living fossil that ceased to change before the appearance of dinosaurs, birds, mammals and even flowering plants. This month, the CUNY Graduate Center will present a comprehensive investigation of this evolutionary oddity in "The Resilient Horseshoe Crab: Guardian of Time," a multi-disciplinary project exploring the horseshoe crab from artistic, social, and scientific perspectives. The program begins on Tuesday, December 4, with a roundtable discussion at 4:30 p.m., followed by an opening reception for "Limulus: Visions of the Living Fossil," an exhibition of sculptures and reliefs by artist Brian Nissen in The Graduate Center Media/Information Center. Also, a series of display cases will present the biology, ecosystems, and social impact of the horseshoe crab. The exhibition will continue through December 20 and can be seen from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday. The free public programs are presented by the Americas Center on Science and Society at The Graduate Center, which is located at 365 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The opening discussion, to be held in The Graduate Center's Skylight Conference Room, will feature panelists representing the fields of art, biology, ecology, the humanities, marine biology, social sciences, and zoology, who will examine the horseshoe crab ‹ which is, in fact, an ancestor of the spider rather than a crab ‹ from artistic, scientific, and societal perspectives. Among the dozen panelists will be biologist John Tanacredi, author of a new book on the subject, Limulus in the Limelight: A Species 350 Million Years in the Making and in Peril?; Graduate Center Distinguished Professor Mary Ann Caws, expert on surrealist art; Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Society Scientific Explorer; and Nissen. Sculptor Brian Nissen has created bronzes and collages inspired by the horseshoe crab, a prehistoric creature found only on the east coast of North America, the Yucatan in Mexico and southeast coast of Asia. Nissen's work invokes a fascination with pre-Hispanic cultures, where art is not privileged expression but a part of daily existence; objects are a kind of "spiritual magnet" that attract a sense of wonder. He has long had a fascination with the contrasting aspects of the horseshoe crab: a smooth helmet exterior that encloses the elaborate symmetries of its underside. Nissen, who studied in London and Paris, spent seventeen years in Mexico and has lived in New York since 1978. He has exhibited at Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City; Museum of Modern Art, Buenos Aires; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, and Museo de Barrio, New York. In addition to the artwork, display-case exhibits outside the gallery describe the horseshoe crab's environment and biology, and its impact on human society. Exhibits on its environment will describe its estuary, habitat, worldwide and tristate distribution, its place in the food web, symbiotic relations with other organisms, and predators. Other exhibits on the biology will detail its maturation, its method of seeing (the study of which has led to a more complete understanding of all visual systems) and its coordination (which has been studied by several scientists, including a Nobel laureate). Displays will also look at the social impact of the horseshoe crab, exploring its use in medicine and farming, as well as attempts to conserve and manage a healthy population. Further information can be found at http://web.gc.cuny.edu/ashp/nml/artsci/crab.html The Americas Center on Science and Society conducts multi-disciplinary research to advance the integration of the natural and social sciences and public policymaking. The Center promotes collaboration among the faculty at CUNY's Graduate Center and serves as a link between CUNY's intellectual community and other experts and decision-makers working on key contemporary areas impacted by globalization and science. This event is part of continuing research on resiliency and its limits being conducted by the Inter-American Comparative Ecosystems and Regional Economies (IACERE), a multi-disciplinary, multi-national team of natural and social scientists. It is also part of The Graduate Center's Science and the Arts series. The Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of The City University of New York. The only consortium of its kind in the nation, The Graduate Center draws its faculty of more than 1,600 members mainly from the CUNY senior colleges and cultural and scientific institutions throughout New York City. Established in 1961, The Graduate Center has grown to an enrollment of about 3,500 students in 31 doctoral programs and six master's degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The Graduate Center also houses 30 research centers and institutes and administers the CUNY Baccalaureate Program. According to a recent National Research Council report, more than a third of The Graduate Center's rated programs rank among the nation's top 20 at public and private institutions, nearly a quarter are among the top ten when compared to publicly supported institutions alone, and more than half are among the top five programs at publicly supported institutions in the northeast. Further information on The Graduate Center's programs and activities can be found on its Web site at: www.gc.cuny.edu. |