Newton and Helen harrison’s new exhibit, currently on display at the Sesnon Gallery, explores global climate change through a variety of mediums.

The walls of the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery are covered in maps. Some stretch from floor to ceiling, some bear scribbled notes and some hang between photographs and diagrams. These are the maps that make up “The Harrison Studio: On Mixing, Mapping and Territory.”

The work comes from Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison, honorary professors-in-residence at UC Santa Cruz in the Digital Arts and New Media graduate program and pioneering artists in the ecological art movement — a term that refers to artistic work dealing with ecological issues. For more than 40 years, the Harrisons have explored solutions to support biodiversity and environmental consciousness through cutting-edge artistic practices.

“[The Harrisons] have encountered a lot of really influential artists we study today and they’re quietly living in Santa Cruz,” said gallery director and co-curator Shelby Graham. “We’re so lucky to have them here.”

The husband and wife team composes their art using maps to demonstrate their environmental concerns and question how the negative forces acting on the global climate have affected the planet.

“A map is an image that privileges one thing or another,” Newton said. “We will make a map that has subject matter we think is important such as river systems, mountains, forests or alternatively, things we disagree with.”

The Harrisons’ maps primarily focus on telling the stories of global warming, which they have dubbed a force majeure — a force with so much dimension that there can be no resistance.

“[The force majeure] is really a connection and combination of all the industrial processes and forces that work negatively together to contribute to global warming,” Helen said.

For the Harrisons, a project emerges when they notice a pattern. In the past, they have focused on issues such as urban renewal, agriculture and forestry, recognizing patterns in the environment that reflect larger global changes. By using maps, the Harrisons are able to present these changes in a way that audiences can grasp, as mapping and recognizing patterns are two key methods to building familiarity with places or concepts.

“Pattern recognition is almost the basis for survival,” Newton said. “Many things happen to you as you see a pattern change or distort.”

The artists might take out all the streets in a map to highlight the waterways, enlarge countries for effect or add elements to show the ecological forces acting on the planet. They can’t always articulate this goal themselves so they call on biologists, urban planners and historians, yet are wary to call their artistic process a collaboration.

“We need a lot of help,” Newton said. “Lots of people help us but so do books and so does the Internet. And also we help others. Collaboration is sort of a throw-away word for people helping each other to get from one place to another.”

The work itself is a marriage of various formal elements. Using maps, photographs and text, the artists reflect the complexity of these global issues and the multi-faceted efforts needed to overcome them. In particular, the written text accompanying these maps serves to enhance the exhibit’s storyline.

“Essentially the work is as narrative as it is visual,” Helen said. “In using poetic prose, the language has denotation but it also has connotation. It opens peoples’ imaginations.”

Particularly in the small space of the Sesnon Gallery, the text is essential to informing the audience and moving them between images and ideas presented throughout the work. The balance between text and image helps shape the story of the powerful environmental shift affecting the world.

“We try to strike a balance with a particular kind of poetic prose,” Newton said. “The value of [prose] is that it lets you condense information.”

Throughout the exhibition, the idea of paying attention continues to arise as a recurring theme. The writing on the walls of the Sesnon urges gallery-goers to “pay attention to the meaning of nature” and the first work that one encounters upon entering the gallery begs the question, “Who’s thinking about this eventuality?”

The world and its global climate are changing before our eyes. The Harrison Studio strives to recognize the patterns before it’s too late to stop this force majeure.

The Harrison Studio: On Mixing, Mapping and Territory will be on display through March 15, Tues.–Sat., 12–5 p.m., Wed. 12–8 p.m. The Earth as Metaphor eco-art lecture series takes place at the Porter Faculty Gallery Wednesday evenings from 4:30–6 p.m.

Students attend a presentation by guest speaker James Fadiman. Fadiman discussed the safe use and history of psychedelic drugs. Photo courtesy of Aviva Wolman.

Editor’s Note: As printed on Feb. 23, Samuel Montero is quoted as saying “There’s a lot of history that cultures have used [psychedelics] recreationally, for religious purposes.” The quote should read, “There’s a lot of history that shows that cultures have used [psychedelics] not simply recreationally, but for religious purposes.” Also, the quote that reads, “The rift between the social sciences is disgusting,” should read instead “The rift between the social sciences and hard sciences is unacceptable.” This piece was updated on Feb. 28 and Oct. 16 to reflect these changes.

The fire marshal would have been angry. With over 350 people at “Shattering Certainty: The Promise and Pitfalls of Psychedelics” Feb. 15, the Humanities Lecture Hall was bursting at the seams.

“How many of you have never taken a psychedelic?” researcher, professor and author James Fadiman asked the audience. A small fraction raised their hands.

Hosted and promoted by the student-led Brain Mind and Consciousness (BMC) Society at UC Santa Cruz, the event’s Facebook page encouraged people to wear “psychedelic attire.” Artwork adorned the walls, provided by Santa Cruz-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), also present.

“You takers are part of a worldwide research group,” Fadiman said. “[Psychedelics] used to be central to Greek culture, Siberia, the indigenous cultures of Latin America … they’ve been illegal in the U.S. for 40 years, but that’s a tiny dot in human history — and it looks like we are rejoining that history.”

Fourth-year Samuel Montero commented on the social relevance of the presentation.

“There’s a lot of history that shows that cultures have used [psychedelics] not simply recreationally, but for religious purposes,” Montero said. “If we had a regulated area where people could use it, I think it would make things safer and more successful all around.”

In 1970, the U.S. Controlled Substances Act classified psychotropic drugs as Schedule I: “No accepted medical use and high potential for abuse.” Alcohol and tobacco are not federally classified as Schedule I.

Fadiman’s book, “The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic and Sacred Journeys,” has been reviewed by Jay Brown of MAPS as “the very best guide that exists on how to prepare for a safe and therapeutic psychedelic journey, with positive psychological transformation as one’s goal.” Copies were sold at the conference.

The presentation mirrored Fadiman’s book, with a history of different psychedelic drugs and their cultural uses, followed by a no-nonsense, straightforward guide to a good trip.

Using a PowerPoint presentation, Fadiman explained the “six critical conditions”: set (how you approach the experience), setting (where you are and what “sensory assists” you have nearby), substance (what you are ingesting and how much of it), sitter (who is with you), session (how much time you set aside for the trip), and situation (how you exit the trip and return to sobriety).

Fadiman also included a dosing guide in his presentation, listing 400 micrograms (mcg) of LSD as the dose required to elicit transcendental experiences, 50 mcg as a “disco-hit,” and 10 mcg a micro dose that “seems to enhance energy and awareness … except rocks don’t glitter and flowers don’t watch you.”

“On the scale of trips, you can have ones like ‘oh’, and you can have ones like ‘whoa!’” Fadiman said. “If you’re going to use these substances, you might as well go for the ‘whoa!’”

Additional topics included Portugal’s broad legalization of substances, potential drawbacks to approaching psychedelics use incorrectly, the American medical model, and the neuroplasticity theory, which hypothesizes that the brain continues to evolve throughout adulthood.

Founder and president of the BMC Andrew Kornfeld spoke to Fadiman at a recent MAPS conference and asked him to be a guest presenter at UCSC.

“We [at the BMC] are not just about psychotropic drugs — this is an aspect of consciousness,” Kornfeld said. “When I’m taking a psychology class, [the other students] don’t understand biology. When I’m taking a biology class, they don’t understand psychology. We’re sick of that. The rift between the social sciences and hard sciences is unacceptable.”

BMC vice president Jessica Heitel discussed the social intent of the presentation.

“We’re bringing together different kinds of people from all walks of study … everyone chipped in to this event,” Heitel said. “[We wanted] to create a community pride atmosphere instead of it being like a lecture.”

A Q&A session among the audience, Fadiman and his panel of colleagues from MAPS followed the presentation.

First-year Nic Zinter commented on the conference’s relevance in Santa Cruz.

“There’s an undeniably big drug culture at UCSC,” Zinter said, “and I think it’s really good to host forums like this to explore the potentials [of psychedelics] and prevent abuse.”