2024
CURATION & EDUCATIONAL FACILITATION
Creature Conserve
Curatorial Fellow
Theme: Beavers-Humans Co-Existence & Ecology
Facilitating a webinar with diverse knowledge holders, a book 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.
PHOTOGRAPHY
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 2023
Alexandra Ionescu is an Ecological Artist-Researcher and Certified Biomimicry Professional based in Providence, RI working through the mediums of photography, video, creative writing, site-specific installations and community engagement projects. Her aim 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. She hopes 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, Alexandra is immersed in expanding her knowledge of rewilding through Miyawaki forests, beavers, and constructed floating wetlands.
She currently works for Bio4Climate (Biodiversity 4 a Livable Climate) as the Urban Forestry Coordinator in their Miyawaki Forest Program. In 2023, she co-initiated the Below and Above Collective, where an interdisciplinary group combines art with ecological functionality to build floating wetlands. She often collaborates 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, she'll activate local conversations and art-making about beavers’ overlooked role in healing our ecosystems through a webinar with diverse knowledge holders, a book club and a curated list of resources.
Alexandra holds a 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 (Pro) in 2021. She is a first-generation student from Bucharest, Romania.
Email: ai@alexandraionescu.com
Instagram: @ionescuale, @belowandabovecollective