Plankton Art - an introduction

Patterns and form in nature have inspired artists and designers throughout history. The microscopic drifting organisms that populate the oceans and great lakes, the plankton, are subject to very different physical forces to those that develop shape and form in larger organisms such as alleviaton of gravity. As a consequence they have developed unique forms, architectures, kinetics and complex symmetries uncommon in larger and terrestrial forms. This source of inspiration was revolutionised by the production of microscopes and technologies necessary for determining the patterning and order of biological structures on the minutest of scales.

It was not just artists who were inspired, but the scientists themselves who were often driven to develop new technology in a quest for discovering more of the wonder of Nature’s design. At the end of the 19th Century this was superbly exemplified in the depiction of the microscopic forms of planktonic organisms that until then had been invisible to those studying the waters of lakes, rivers and the oceans. There can be no better example of this inspirational movement than the work of the zoologist and artist, Ernst Haeckel whose illustrations of marine organisms influenced the Art Nouveau movement. However, inspiring such illustrations can be, nothing can compare with observing the movements, interactions and kaleidoscope of patterns, colour and forms of living plankton. This is not generally available to artists and designers as the collecting of fresh material and its visualisation requires specialist skills and considerable investment in equipment. Thus, they are left to see this world through the conditioned eyes of scientists.

In PLANKTON ART designer makers Louise Hibbert and Sarah Parker-Eaton have formed a partnership to investigate plankton for themselves, and relate their observations in a unique collection of work made in wood, silver and gold.