On the shoulders of giants: Bernheim curator links art to preservation of nature

An enormous, humanoid head emerges from the earth in a small forest clearing, gasping for air and staring up at the sky.

Its bones of rebar and skin of intertwined American beech branches, collected from the surrounding Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, catch the eyes of passersby, who stop to admire and understand the unexpected figure.

Jenny Zeller smiles at the visitors’ childlike wonder. She’s Bernheim’s arts in nature curator, and these reactions are exactly what she’s going for.

The larger-than-life art installation, titled “OXYGEN,” is the work of Netherlands-based artist collective AKUNZO, consisting of Aris de Bakker and Karola Pezzaro, part of Bernheim’s 2022 artist-in-residence program.

It’s a metaphor for humanity’s inseverable tie to a planet that it has routinely abused. This summer, the monument has stood against a sky stained by the smoke of Canadian wildfires, while record heat, flooding and other climate extremes have battered other parts of the country.

Art like this, Zeller said, has the ability to reach hearts and minds in ways nothing else can. And when people feel a connection to natural places like Bernheim, she said, maybe they’ll take steps to protect them.

"Nature needs art now more than ever," Zeller said. “Art attaches our hearts to what we deem as important … it can educate in ways that are different than science.”

Come for the giants, stay for the forest

Bernheim’s art installations, like the iconic Forest Giants, have captured the hearts of the public.

After they were installed in 2019 — thanks to Danish artist Thomas Dambo and dozens of volunteers — Zeller said Bernheim's attendance doubled. The giants seemed to have "ignited something about arts in nature."

"They were coming here for giants," Zeller said of the forest's wave of visitors in recent years. "But then they were learning about all these other awesome things that Bernheim has been doing for decades."

The three wooden figures, positioned in different corners of Bernheim’s 16,000 acres of preserved forestland, have become synonymous with the organization’s mission to help the public connect with nature in new ways — a mission that Zeller says is aligned with the vision of the forest’s founder, German immigrant Isaac Wolfe Bernheim.

The artist-in-residence program includes lodging, a stipend, studio support and more. Last year, about 250 artists applied, sharing artistic visions for Bernheim from all over the world.

And each year, Zeller has the painstaking task of narrowing those applications down to four artists. One slot is dedicated to a regional artist in Kentucky or Southern Indiana.

Zeller, a Louisville native, graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1995 with a degree in arts administration and headed for Key West, Florida, where she directed several art galleries focused on international art and artifacts. She returned to Louisville nearly two decades later, "in search of a life less career-focused and more passion-driven."

After bringing her photography and mixed-media background to Bernheim's regional artist-in-residence program, Zeller started as visual arts coordinator in 2017.

Her curation aims to bring visitors to the forest, but also to get them thinking about topics like conservation, biodiversity and climate change in approachable ways.

Now, those same debates are banging on Bernheim's gates, as a utility's proposed gas pipeline threatens to slice through the forest's Cedar Grove Wildlife Corridor.

A judge in Bullitt County recently granted LG&E the authority to break a conservation easement to build the pipeline under eminent domain laws, a ruling Bernheim has appealed. LG&E, a sponsor of some Bernheim programs, says the pipeline is necessary to serve nearby communities.

An international spotlight on Kentucky's natural charm

When the Bullitt Circuit Court issued its ruling against Bernheim, bringing the proposed pipeline one step closer to construction, Carla Rhodes called Jenny Zeller, in tears.

Rhodes, a wildlife conservation photographer, was an artist-in-residence in 2022. During her time at Bernheim, she photographed the Cedar Grove area, seeking to capture under-appreciated life, like micro snails, and promote its importance as a wildlife corridor.

Her photography of the corridor was published in multiple publications, including The Guardian, bringing an international audience to the pipeline fight.

Nearing a century of operations to the south of Louisville, Bernheim has become an enduring favorite for locals. Yellow “Save Bernheim Forest” signs are staked in yards around Louisville, rallying support against the pipeline, and Louisville Metro Council approved a resolution opposing the land seizure.

But when Rhodes’ photography was amplified beyond Kentucky, she said audiences seemed surprised that Kentucky had so much biodiversity to offer, adding that the natural beauty of the American South is too often overlooked.

The arts in nature program, now part of the forest's operations for over four decades, has "put Bernheim on the map in a different way," Rhodes said.

Zeller has played a key role in that since she started at Bernheim in 2017. But she gives credit to the many artists who've joined Bernheim's ranks over the years, and the environment itself.

"They come to Bernheim, and they freak out," Zeller said of the artists she's worked with, "because this is such a grand space, and there's magic here."

That was the case even for Rhodes, a Louisville native who has spent her adult life in New York (where she says no one knows how to make good biscuits). Missing Kentucky, she came back for the Bernheim residency and was inspired, both by the forest and by Zeller.

"I was a different person after Bernheim," Rhodes said.

Connor Giffin is an environmental reporter for The Courier Journal and a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. The program funds up to half of corps members’ salaries, but requires a portion also be raised through local community fundraising. To support local environmental reporting in Kentucky, tax-deductible donations can be made at courier-journal.com/RFA.

Learn more about RFA at reportforamerica.org. Reach Connor directly at cgiffin@gannett.com or on Twitter @byconnorgiffin.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Bernheim curator Jenny Zeller links art to preservation of nature