Mark Dion: The Field Sta­tion of the Melan­choly Marine Biol­o­gist: Gov­er­nors Island, New York

Adapt­ed espe­cial­ly for Gov­er­nors Island, Mark Dion’s immer­sive The Field Sta­tion of the Melan­choly Marine Biol­o­gist takes vis­i­tors on a voyeuris­tic jour­ney con­fronting a future impact­ed by cli­mate change.

Pre­vi­ous­ly pre­sent­ed at Storm King Art Cen­ter as part of the exhi­bi­tion Cli­mate Indi­ca­tors: Artists on Cli­mate Change in 2018, and Prospect 4, New Orleans in 2017, The Field Sta­tion of the Melan­choly Marine Biol­o­gist takes on a new form on Gov­er­nors Island, with objects and mate­r­i­al cul­ture informed by the Island’s unique his­to­ry and the ecol­o­gy of New York Har­bor and the But­ter­milk Chan­nel. Start­ing Octo­ber 8, 2021, the piece will be on long-term view in Build­ing 105, a his­toric arse­nal build­ing locat­ed with­in the Gov­er­nors Island His­toric Dis­trict locat­ed across from Fort Jay. 

The new instal­la­tion of the work trans­forms his­toric Build­ing 105 into an aban­doned research out­post, filled with sci­en­tif­ic objects, instru­ments, arti­facts and sam­ples. As vis­i­tors peer through the building’s win­dows, they wit­ness a scene pre­served in time — a moment, Dion explains, ​“where some­body study­ing the nat­ur­al world real­izes that the future’s not look­ing so good…that we are going to lose a great amount of the nat­ur­al won­ders that have been here in pre­vi­ous cen­turies.” The work invites reflec­tion on the tools and method­olo­gies through which audi­ences seek to under­stand the world around them, while invit­ing vis­i­tors to imag­ine the life of a soli­tary researcher faced with the real­i­ties of a dark future declin­ing ocean health impact­ed by cli­mate change. 

The Field Sta­tion of the Melan­choly Marine Biol­o­gist is made pos­si­ble through the gen­er­ous sup­port of Cha­ri­na Endow­ment Fund, Stavros Niar­chos Foun­da­tion, and the Don­ald A. Pels Char­i­ta­ble Trust.