Andrea Quitugua

Life science is foundational in my work. It has led me to explore relationships from an ecosystem perspective.

Being from Texas, times of drought patterned my life. When a creek stops flowing, its ecosystem undergoes a spectacular transition. Far from still, stress and change restructure the environment.

Here, mats of algae cloud a new world created by drought.

After water disappears from the surface of a creek bed, for a time, its wetness hides below ground. Aquatic life, and the algae that proliferated in stagnation, dies back and becomes nutrition.

For a moment, this invites a lushness that’s disappeared from the neighboring landscapes of yellow grass. Plants move in and thrive, and the ground of the bed still swirls with the fluid movement of hundreds of baby frogs.

Over time, these ephemeral moments shape the landscape.

Here, the travertine terraces of Yellowstone show what can be built from countless small movements, in this case reactions. As acidic fluid flows up from below ground, it brings ions of calcium and carbonate, separate and oppositely charged particles suspended in water. At the surface, these particles find each other, embrace, and precipitate into hard stone.

As people, we are also part of the ecosystem. Human history has always shaped landscapes, and recent histories of colonization, globalization, and industrialization have reshaped them quickly and violently.

At Harper’s Ferry, English colonists took interest in the land because of its position at the fork of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. Years of human conflict followed and still the trees remain wrapped in invasive English ivy.

Some stress can be healthy, like the routine drying and then refilling of some Texas creeks. However, some pressures come too hard and too fast for ecosystems to recover without jarring loss.

My last year in Texas saw the second hottest summer on record. Locals said it was the worst.

Pictured is Jacob’s Well, which stopped flowing that summer for only the sixth time on record. When you looked into it, you’d see the faces of fish staring back at you with nowhere to go. The news reported that overconsumption by a utilities company was responsible.

My interest in how people interact with the environment extends to the study of architectural built environments.

At the Elmgreen & Dragset's Prada Marfa installation, consumerism and manicured structure is juxtaposed against a broad natural landscape. To me, the effect is a cynical expression of the separation between people and the environment.

The architects of the University Teaching Center instead opted to highlight the connection between humanity and the natural world, via exploration of architecture and geology. The building’s exterior is unpainted concrete, made from limestone and cement. At the center, a wall made from slabs of locally quarried limestone is spotted with intact shell fossils. These choices of materials demonstrate how our built world is a transformation of our natural world.

In the Life Science Library, minerals with fossils are cut down to fit inside the halls. Pieces of nature are separated and suspended as samples and displays. Life is interpreted through academic structure. Similarly, the architecture of the building is in the academic Beaux-Arts style, with classical European themes. Beams painted with quotes from Western academic history stretch overhead and literally structure the learning environment.

The Library of Congress is another institution that features Beaux-Arts style architecture. Etched into stone, values from the 1800s remain built into our world. However, people move much faster than stone. Contemporarily, the LOC is one of the many institutions working to expand the diversity of library studies, digitizing archives, and making information more accessible.