2024
WEBINAR CURATION AND FACILITATION
Creature Conserve
Beavers : Restorers of Biodiversity
Virtual on Zoom
June 13th, 4:00 - 5:30 PM EST
Register here
SITE-SPECIFIC INSTALLATION
Below and Above Collective
Constructed Floating Wetland
Polo Lake, Roger Williams Park
Providence, RI
Installation Launch: June 15th (open to the public)
12:00 PM - 4:00 PM EST
June 2024 - December 2025
*We are honored to be joined by Lorén M. Spears, Executive Director of the Tomaquag Museum and Narragansett Tribal elder, who will deliver a Land Acknowledgement at 12:30 PM.
PHOTO + WRITING COMISSION
Orca Living
Leave the Leaves
April 2024
*started working part-time at Biodiversity 4 a Livable Climate (Bio4Climate in the Miyawaki Forest Program)
April 2024
CURATION & EDUCATIONAL FACILITATION
Creature Conserve
Curatorial Fellow
Theme: Beavers-Humans Co-Existence & Ecology
Facilitating a webinar with diverse knowledge holders, a “Read/Reflect/Create” club and creating a curated list of resources.
March - September 2024
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT & OUTREACH
Stormwater Innovation Center
In collaboration with Holly Ewald, I am creating community engagement & outreach materials for a new green infrastructure project in Cranston, RI.
February - June 2024
2023
GROUP EXHIBITION
Re-Imagining Conservation: From Many Viewpoints
National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Animation of “Below and Above, a Floating Wetland Supports Life” in collaboration with Holly Ewald
July 1st - November 13th, 2023
PRESENTATION
Below and Above Collective about our work with floating wetlands.
Stormwater Innovation Expo
October 18th 2023
GROUP EXHIBITION
RISD 2023 Grad Biennial
Interior Atlas: Ways of Research
Sol Koffler Graduate Student Gallery @ RISD
co-curated by Anne West and Holly Gaboriault
September 7th - October 12th 2023
VIRTUAL PANEL
Curated Conservation: A Virtual Panel Conversation with
Re-Imagining Conservation: From Many Viewpoints
Exhibiting Artists
October 8, 2023 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm EST
NEWS FEATURE
EcoRI wrote about our floating wetland structure. Read the article “Award-Winning Floating Wetland Possible Remedy for Blue-Green Algae Blooms.”
AWARD
Below and Above, A Floating Wetland Supports Life was recognized as the winning art installation of the outdoor exhibition “Art on the Trails: Transformation 2023”
SITE-SPECIFIC INSTALLATION
ART ON THE TRAILS: TRANSFORMATION 2023
on Ice Pond at the Elaine and Philip Beals Preserve Southborough, Massachusetts
Constructed floating wetland “Below and Above, a Floating Wetland Supports Life” in collaboration with August Lehrecke, Matthew P. Muller, Holly Ewald, Hope Leeson, Maxwell Fertik
June 10 - September 17th, 2023
READINGS CURATION & DISCUSSION FACILITATION
Metabolic Studio
Learning & Mending “Ways of Being” Series
Each Tuesday from 8:30 to 10 PM EST on Zoom we are reading & discussing selected chapters from James Bridle’s book “Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence”
April 4th - June 20th 2023
The syllabus can be accessed here.
PHOTO COMISSION
The Atlantic
Photograph of an earthworm taken in my
community garden plot
May 31st 2023
COLLECTIVE POETRY READING & LIVE PERFORMANCE
Edna Lawrence Nature Lab | Rhode Island School of Design
Readings by poet Eleni Sikelianos from her latest work, "Your Kingdom," along with the writing of other poets and scholars, including myself.
April 19th 2023
VIRTUAL LECTURE
Rhode Island School of Design
Alumni Speaking Series Between a Bookshelf and a Pond
March 20th 202
My goal is to inspire learning from and about diverse non-human intelligences, cultivating propensities for ecosystem regeneration through co-existence, collaboration, and by making the invisible visible. I hope to motivate others to ask, “How can humans give back to the web of life?” by raising awareness of biodiversity and natural cycles to challenge human-centric infrastructures.
At present, I am immersed in expanding my knowledge of rewilding through Miyawaki forests, beaver engineered landscapes, and constructed floating wetlands.
I currently work for Bio4Climate (Biodiversity 4 a Livable Climate) as the Associate Director of Regenerative Projects.
In my spare time, I am part of the Below and Above Collective, an interdisciplinary group that combines art with ecological functionality to build constructed floating wetlands. In addition, I often collaborate with community-engaged artist Holly Ewald on various projects, including a charcoal animation and developing educational materials for green infrastructure and stormwater community education.
As the 2024 Creature Conserve Curatorial Fellow, I am activating local conversations and art-making about beavers’ overlooked role in healing our ecosystems through a webinar with diverse knowledge holders, a "Read/Reflect/Create" club, and a curated list of resources.
I hold an MA in Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies from the Rhode Island School of Design and an online MS in Biomimicry from Arizona State University, graduating from the 5th cohort of the Biomimicry Professional Program (BPro) in 2021. I am a first-generation student from Bucharest, Romania.
Email: ai@alexandraionescu.com
Instagram: @ionescuale, @belowandabovecollective
CV available upon request