Leading pioneers of the Eco-Art movement, the collaborative team of Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison (often referred to simply as “the Harrisons”) have worked for over forty years with biologists, ecologists, architects, urban planners and other artists to initiate collaborative dialogues to uncover ideas and solutions, which support biodiversity and community wellbeing.

The Harrison’s concept of art embraces a breathtaking range of disciplines. They are historians, diplomats, ecologists, investigators, emissaries and art activists. Their work involves not only public discussion and proposing solutions, but also extensive mapping and documentation of these proposals in an art context.

Past projects have focused on watershed restoration, urban renewal, agricultural and forestry issues among others. The Harrisons’ visionary projects have led to changes in governmental policy and have expanded dialogue around previously unexplored issues, leading to practical implementations both in the United States and Europe.

Their work process is singular. It begins with the question, “How Big is Here?” Here may be a street corner, as in California Wash or it may be a sub-continent, such as Peninsula Europe. The artists create the agenda in discourse with the larger community. They stay only as long as the invitation continues, or until they deem that they have done all that is possible for them to do.

How did the two of you begin working together? Was the collaboration a way of enlarging the scope, the scale of engagement with the environment as artists?

Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison:

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