Artistic Collaboration as Trans-species Ecojustice: The American Eel and Meaning Making
Jesse McLaughlin (he/him) began a long-term, multispecies artistic collaboration with the endangered American eel in the New York Harbor this summer. Developing an arts- and critical-making process that incorporated hands-on scientific fieldwork, McLaughlin cast his own “eel mop,” a passive trap made to mimic juvenile eel habitats, at a field site on Governors Island, a location at which the American eel has never before been monitored. He continues to examine ways in which an incorporation of a multispecies arts practice could lead to the furthering of species protection through meaning-making.