Roundup: An Entomological Endeavor for the Smart Museum of Art

The work of Mark Dion often addresses the relationship between nature and culture and the manner in which this interplay is visualized and understood. Originating as a commission by the Smart Museum for the 2000 exhibition Ecologies, Roundup stemmed from an interactive performance in which the artist led a team of volunteers through the Museum to collect insects. Dion then created photographic “portraits” of these insects in a temporary lab set up within one of the Museum’s galleries. The lab, photographs, and mannequin (wearing field gear and Dion’s trademark glasses) remained on view as an installation. This pared-down version of the original installation is the final form of the piece.
Dion wrote of this work, “Our notion of nature as something separate, as something ‘out there’ tethered to the idea of wilderness, remains one of the prevalent and pernicious urban prejudices. Nature seems not to be found in the everyday, unless magnified. By shifting our focus we can be reminded that we are inalienably part of an ecology—we are constructed by and construct the world around us… My project for the Smart Museum is a modest attempt to re-tie severed bonds with the non-human world by negotiating a space of encounter.”

Resource: Ecologies: Mark Dion, Peter Fend, Dan Peterman, ed. Stephanie Smith, exh. cat. (Chicago: The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, 2000), 35.