The director of the Biodiversity Foundation participated today in the inauguration of the exhibition “Fractal Harmony of Doñana and the Marshes”. The exhibition can be visited from January 15 to February 28, 2010, in the Villanueva Pavilion of the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid, free of charge with admission to the Royal Botanical Garden.

The director of the Biodiversity Foundation participated today in the inauguration of the exhibition “Fractal Harmony of Doñana and the Marshes”. The exhibition can be visited from January 15 to February 28, 2010, in the Villanueva Pavilion of the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid, free of charge with admission to the Royal Botanical Garden.

Ana Leiva was joined at the opening ceremony by the director of the Royal Botanical Garden (CSIC), Gonzalo Nieto Feliner, the scientific curator of the exhibition (CSIC), Juan Manuel García Ruiz, and the photographer and technical curator of the exhibition (CSIC), Héctor Garrido.

It is an interactive exhibition that aims to offer visitors science, art and entertainment. Clouds, bacteria, the maritime coastline, are examples of structures that respond to fractal geometry. In approximately one hour that the tour lasts, the viewer will be able to elucidate the geometry that nature hides and that sometimes can only be appreciated, as shown by each of the 32 photographs that make it up, from a bird’s eye view.

The exhibition “Fractal Harmony of Doñana and the Marshes”, which has been organized by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), an agency of the Ministry of Science and Innovation, has already visited the cities of Seville, Huelva and Granada, and now arrives in Madrid thanks to the collaboration of the Biodiversity Foundation, the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, the Andalusian Water Agency of the Ministry of the Environment of the Junta de Andalucía, the Science Park of Granada, the Royal Botanical Garden, the Doñana Biological Station-CSIC and the Laboratory of Crystallographic Studies of the Institute of Earth Sciences-CSIC.

The originality of the work lies in the fusion between art, contributed in this case by the photographer Héctor Garrido, and science, exposed through the contributions of the scientific curator of the exhibition, Juan Manuel García Ruiz. Likewise, the 32 photographs are accompanied by the texts of 32 authors from different areas of the world of art and science, including José Saramago, Luis Landero or Jorge Drexler.

The idea came from CSIC photographer Héctor Garrido, who carries out the monthly census of Doñana waterbirds in the Natural Processes Monitoring Team of the Doñana Biological Station. Thanks to the privilege of seeing the natural space from the air practically every week, Garrido realized that, with all those irregular and repeated shapes, nature seemed to want to say something. In the eyes of scientist Juan Manuel García Ruiz, these photographs revealed complex fractal structures: the geometric language of nature. It was necessary to explain it, and the idea of holding an exhibition took shape.

The unique aerial images taken of Doñana and the Andalusian marshes by Héctor Garrido, introduce the visitor to the complex and exciting world of fractal geometry. The exhibition includes a selection of photographs that present the structure of the landscape of the marshes sculpted over thousands of years by the force of the tide and the dynamics of sedimentation and erosion, as well as other natural and even artificial agents. In addition, it aims to go beyond the beauty of these structures and aspires to induce the viewer to wonder about the origin and transmission capacity of that beauty. The harmony of the structures photographed is linked to their fractal structure, which is nature’s own geometry.

With the help of technology, the exhibition aims to show viewers how these structures are measured and to teach them, through computer simulations, the geometry and physics behind the generation of these structures.

More information at www.armoniafractal.com.