Isa Cruz

On March 4, the exhibition “Field (Art) Work” opened at the Roux Center, displaying the work of student summer fellows on Kent Island between 1997 and 2024. The island, located off the mainland in the Bay of Fundy, is home to the Bowdoin Scientific Station and brings students from different disciplines together to pursue their scientific or artistic pursuits.

For over 25 years, Kent Island has hosted a student artist-in-residence program to portray the island’s landscape, research and daily life in their work.

Tess Mooney ’26 and Caitlin Panicker ’26 both lived on Kent Island last summer and, once back at Bowdoin, curated the exhibition highlighting the intersection of science, art and the land. Mooney and Panicker began planning the exhibition last spring when Mary Hart, a former visiting professor of printmaking, proposed the idea.

The exhibition opening featured a presentation by Mooney and Panicker, which began with a recording by Briana Cunliffe ’22 reading her poem “Waltz For a Hawk.” They also showed a short video by Emily Weyrauch ’17 and Katie Craighill ’17, part of the “Close Behind” series of videos the two students filmed on the island. Riley Simon ’26 then read her poem “North End Cove,” recounting her experience winding down after busy research days by sitting near a little cove.

The exhibition, which spans the second and third floors of Roux, displayed a variety of works, including drawings, prints and written work, with an emphasis on the intersection between field research and the arts. Panicker explained how the curation process blurred the boundaries between her artistic work and scientific studies, allowing her to consider how the disciplines inform and influence one another.

“I think it’s just really valuable to look at science, which can seem so rigid and it seems like there’s only one way to look at it, and then to add that layer of art and writing,” Panicker said.

She also noted how much she has learned from the people and researchers she connected with at the island.

“Drawing those connections between literature that I’m reading and experiences that I’ve had on Kent Island with science [I learned] in the past has been really fun for me,” Panicker said. “I think it’s just a different way of looking at all of these experiences that I’ve had that I thought were only about science or only about observation.”

Cora Dow ’24, a visual arts and history major whose work is featured in the exhibition, lived on Kent Island two summers ago and was in charge of a project studying tree swallows. She went out every other morning to check each tree swallow box. Dow created a series of small books, each of which were focused on different projects on the island.

“I wanted to show how everything on the island is interconnected, and that was really cool because everyone is living together,” said Dow. “We’re all discussing our research and how some of it influences the other research. And then you’re also walking around the island all day, and then you just see things that are connected.”

Dow noted that her experience on Kent Island allowed her to fully immerse herself into the world of research and art in new ways.

“The point of the exhibition on Kent is that science isn’t scary and art isn’t scary. You can try anything, and everything is interconnected, so just be open to anything,” Dow said.

Dow, like Panicker, emphasized that her love for Kent Island came not only from the environment, but also from the people. This appreciation for people and place is part of what makes the exhibition so special.

“Kent is wonderful, and I miss it,” Dow said. “It’s so nice to see other people who experience that same thing and just be like, ‘Yeah this is a special place.’”

Caitlin Panicker ’26 is a member of the Bowdoin Orient.