Arts
Hello dear listeners! In today's episode, I'm delighted to talk with Indian Jones of our time - James Prosek. We will explore how illustrations and paintings of nature contribute to preserve and inspire people to cherish wildlife. In recent months I've seen more and more art exhibitions related to nature, and today, I have the pleasure to chat with an artist who comes to art through his life-long love of nature. James is an American artist, famous for his detailed portrayal of natural creatures. His best-known work is Trout: An Illustrated History, published at the age of 19 when he was still studying English Literature at Yale. Gifted with multifaceted talents, James has been capturing biodiversity of the natural world, not only by paintings but also by writing and filmmaking. He has written for The New York Times and National Geographic Magazine and won a Peabody Award in 2003 for his documentary about traveling through England in the footsteps of Izaak Walton. We started our conversation from exploring James's past and his Indiana Jones-style trips across the entire world. We then explored his art techniques and unique materials he recently worked with. Last but not least, we talked about the long term problem with boundaries between our language and nature and why James is so passionate to change the way how we are classifying, collecting and naming natural creatures. Lastly, please forgive me for the background noise in the first 20 minutes of our discussion, we started our conversation at James's show opening and soon after it began to be very noisy, so we moved to one of the conference rooms which was much better for podcasting. Ps. If you are in Hong Kong between 6 July and 8 September 2019, you must see James's newest show "the Hidden Forests" the Asia Society. You can find more information about the exhibition on the show notes. James Prosek website: www.troutsite.com James IG: @jamesprosek Arta website: www.artaapp.com Arta IG: @artaapps HIDDEN FORESTS SHOW Show dates: 6 July - 8 August 2019 Address: Asia Society, 9 Justice Drive Admiralty Hong Kong Info: Asia Society Hong Kong Center presents Hidden Forests, a summer arts and culture project offering many events, programs and experiences for all ages. Focusing on local ecology, Hidden Forests celebrates Hong Kong’s trees and biodiversity and promotes the importance of caring for the environment. Inspired as a response to Hong Kong’s devastating loss of trees caused by the tropical cyclone Typhoon Mangkhut in September 2018, Hidden Forests includes an art exhibition, a music series, community workshops and nature tours that explore the significance of trees to our local environment, culture and history. The cross-disciplinary program brings together local artistic talent and expert ecologists to strengthen public awareness about forestry and biodiversity in Hong Kong.