Tending to Eden: Photographs of Biosphere 2
Tending to Eden: Photographs of Biosphere 2
2020 - 2025
Tending to Eden: Photographs of Biosphere 2
2020 - 2025
Presently, Biosphere 2 is a University of Arizona research facility located in Oracle, Arizona. It is a 3.14-acre structure originally built in 1991 as an artificial compound of closed ecological systems or a vivarium. Five biomes are contained within it – a rainforest, ocean, mangrove, desert, and the Landscape Evolution Observatory. It remains the largest closed structure of ecological systems ever created.
The origins, history and current applications of Biosphere 2 are controversial and shrouded in mystery. Its trajectory since 1991 has been a theatrical narrative of serious science, financial stress, personnel pitfalls, embarrassments and substantive accomplishments. Supported by a research grant from the University of Arizona, I wandered freely within this closed system and absorbed its paradoxes. A rainforest in the desert? The strangeness of the transition as I first entered Biosphere 2 from the arid Sonoran desert into a domed, dripping-wet rainforest was a combination of disbelief and amazement. Were these moments of hope or despair glimpses of utopia or dystopia? This controlled environment is a strange and fascinating place characterized by institutional regimen, laboratory machinations and eerie juxtapositions between human and flora agendas.
Current research at Biosphere 2 centers on climate change – evaluating it, determining its impact on our planet and searching for ways to minimize or adapt to it. These fabricated biomes allow scientists to study climate change at a more tightly controlled level as compared to the “real” world and on a grander scale as compared to smaller more conventional laboratories. Each biome has its hermetic space in the Biosphere. The machinery, technologies and residues of science partner with each environment. This micro-universe allowed me to photograph from ocean to desert to tropics to grasslands by taking just a few short steps from one part of the world to the next.
I began my photography project at Biosphere 2 in early February 2020 but by the end of that month, discontinued the project as COVID became a stark reality. In late 2024 I decided to restart the project in November 2024, began once again visiting Biosphere 2 and making photographs there. The Biosphere 2 administration both in 2020 and 2024 was gracious welcoming me and allowed me 24/7 access for which I am grateful. I greatly admire and respect the critically important research that is happening there and all those involved in it.