Interview with Prof. Dr. Matthias Glaubrecht: Why art and nature belong together

For Matthias Glaubrecht, artistic explorations of nature absolutely belong in a natural history museum. He sees the exhibition "Vanishing Legacies: The World as Forest" he sees as an ideal complement to the Anthropocene exhibition in the new foyer of the Museum of Nature Hamburg - Zoology. In the interview, he traces the arc from Alfred Russel Wallace's exploratory voyages to the tropical rainforests a century and a half ago to the radical decimation of biodiversity and natural habitats reflected in the artistic works.

Why do you show art in the Natural History Museum?

Researchers and artists are very similar in nature; both are insatiably curious and driven to explore new things - and to present them in their own way. In fact, we should not strictly separate science and art. That's why, for me, art actually belongs in a natural history museum as well, as a matter of course.

Artistic processes occur everywhere in the sciences, especially in natural history research. There have always been, and still are today, diverse relationships and influences in which artists of all epochs have dealt with nature in all its facets. This is no wonder in so far as nature is for man next to himself probably the most important reference point of his being. We only forget this more and more often, the more an increasing proportion of mankind loses the direct daily contact with nature - especially in the growing metropolises and megacities. This is one of the reasons why it is important to show artistic representations and confrontations with nature in our museum; even more so when it is about such a vital and highly topical subject as the Anthropocene - i.e. a new earth age dominated by humans.

What does the study of Wallace's natural history show us?

Alfred Russel Wallace was - along with Darwin and Humboldt - in my estimation one of the important and authoritative natural scientists of the 19th century. He had the good fortune to travel to two of the most important and species-rich habitats on earth on adventurous expeditions lasting several years - first to the Amazon region with its then still extensive tropical rainforests and one of the most biodiverse river landscapes on earth, then to the Indo-Malayan island world between Asia and Australia with an infinitely species-rich and diverse fauna and flora. It was not only his abundant collections of new and previously unknown species that made him famous; his travel and research accounts also played a crucial role in the development of our current ideas about the evolution of species, their occurrence and distribution. At the same time, Wallace's research and travels show us how much we humans have changed nature in these two regions of the earth in particular - and by no means for the best of the animals living there.

In our exhibition, Wallace thus also becomes a mirror for those changes in nature that we evolutionary biologists are following with growing concern.

Where do the research at LIB and the artistic works meet?

At LIB, we are investigating the origin and distribution of animal species; the regions where Wallace spent many years traveling, such as the islands of Borneo and Sulawesi, play an essential role in this. No biodiversity researcher, but also no one else who travels there today, misses the enormous changes that have been affecting nature there for several decades. In the process, many habitats are disappearing - and with them the species living there, in addition to orangutans and tigers, especially the countless colorful butterflies and other insects as well as the many fascinating bird species. The artistic works that we are now showing for the first time at LIB deal precisely with these themes - the diversity and fascination, but also the loss of species.

What can LIB do to counteract the great extinction of species?

Our tasks are manifold: on the one hand, we research biodiversity, its becoming, but also its passing. On the other hand, we explain nature and impart knowledge about natural history - in publications, lectures and in our exhibitions.

Educating people here at home about what is currently happening in nature in these species-rich regions of the world is an important contribution for us, indeed the basis for the hopefully rapid protection of biodiversity in the Amazon and the Indo-Malay Archipelago. In times of much-debated globalization, we here at home also have it in our hands what happens there on the other side of the earth.

From your perspective, could the exhibition also be seen as an Anthropocene exhibition?

The term Anthropocene - which, by the way, was first coined in 2000 by an atmospheric scientist - has, amazingly enough, since then made an astonishing career, especially in cultural studies. I don't want to say that it has been hijacked, but it has certainly been charged with a variety of meanings, which is not always helpful.

For me as an evolutionary scientist, the Anthropocene is first and foremost an important geoscientific research concept. It sums up many aspects in a catchy formula, the effects of which we are currently also observing in biodiversity research and in species and nature conservation.

The artistic Wallace exhibition on the "Disappearing Legacies" therefore wonderfully complements the exhibition section in the new foyer area of the Museum of Nature Hamburg - Zoology, which was only redesigned in 2017, where much of the background and context of Anthropocene research is illuminated, such as how the growing world population is limiting the life possibilities of many animal species; or why we are contributing to the unchecked shrinking of tropical rainforests in Brazil and in Indonesia through our preference for Nutella and meat.

The two parts together - our anthropology exhibition in the new foyer and the "Disappearing Legacies" around Alfred Russel Wallace's forests, we hope, will allow visitors to discover new perspectives on our interaction with nature.