Mara Haseltine

artist, environmental activist

New York, US

environmental cultural biological science
About

Mara G. Haseltine is an international artist, a pioneer in the field of SciArt, and an environmental activist and educator. Haseltine collaborates with scientists and engineers to create work that addresses the link between our cultural and biological evolution. Her work takes place in the studio, lab and field, infusing scientific inquiry with poetry. She was a pioneer in the translation of scientific data and bioinformatics into three-dimensional sculptures and became known for her outsized renditions of microscopic and sub-microscopic life. She created the first solar-powered oyster reef in NYC and has extensively studied sustainable reef restoration methods for the past 15 years, fusing art with sustainable solutions for ‘SIDS,’ Small Island Developing States at the United Nations. . She recently became Honorary Advisor of the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY in Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC at the United Nations in 2020 Haseltine has been a contributing member of the Explorers Club since 2008. She was awarded Return of the Flag with Honors for her work on the high seas with Tara Expeditions studying atmospheric climate change and its relationship to planktonic ecosystems. Haseltine’s work is refreshing in the world of environmental and biomedical art because of its surreal, often-playful and witty nature, as well as her intense devotion to ascetics and sensuality.  She is currently the founding Director of a new nonprofit entitled the Geotherapy Institute for Art and Field  Science whose first project is The Rocco Cocco Reef and ecological underwater sculpture and field science destination based on a unicellular plankton called a “coccolithophore”, which is a major contributor to balancing the planets’ atmosphere worldwide….

“Currently the 2020-2021 pandemic has captured world-wide attention.  We are entering what has the potential of being the dawning of the golden age for science literacy.  Never have images of the microscopic world been more prevalent in popular culture.  In a profound sense people are realizing that their lives depend on scientific breakthroughs at a microscopic scale. There exists today a hunger for knowledge about science in the public.  We have proved with the invention of the COVID 19 vaccine that humanity can work together collaboratively on an urgent problem in record speed.  This intense collaboration has been incredible to witness and be a part of.  The pandemic though tragic, has awakened the public to the importance of science and the importance microscopic world.  My current body of work addresses this pivotal moment for humanity through depictions of recent scientific discoveries celebrating the discovery of the COVID 19 vaccine and beyond.  It is a joy to create this work because it is in fact a celebration of how we can work together on a global scale on an urgent threat.   It is my goal as an artist to inspire, inform and empower my viewers about the natural world and scientific discovery.  My intention with all my work is to influence and foster a global bioethic in which we care for one another and act as stewards for our shared biosphere.” -Mara G Haseltine Cambridge MA 2021

Films

Je mange la mort pour diner

DIRECTOR

La Bohème: A Portrait of Today’s Oceans in Peril

DIRECTOR