Meet Alan Ruiz | Berman | Environmental Artist & Conservation Biologist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alan Ruiz | Berman and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alan, what inspires you?

Exploring Human Ecology, including our anthropocentric and individual relationship to the natural world through visual art, creative writing, and experimentation has been a constant since I was a kid growing up in the coastal salt marshes of New England. Perhaps it was visiting the National Parks as a kid, and being born in the world’s largest metropolis, Mexico City, where green spaces are precious and rare, that led my brother and I to a deep appreciation of wetlands, forests, and oceans. In terms of art, the Mexican Muralists and American Museum-Diorama tradition, such as the murals of the Natural History Museum in NYC, captivated my young imagination, because these are forms of art that combine history, science, math, and the humanities to make whole worlds more accessible to everyday people.

Through my travels and immersive experiences studying and living in places like New Zealand, Australia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and the Desert Southwest, I have also gained inspiration from Indigenous Art, which more often represents a deeply meaningful tradition and language rather than a form of personal expression. As both an artist and scholar, a critical part of taking inspiration from Indigenous and other cultures is to practice reciprocity by sharing my art and seeking honest responses and conversations around my work, especially with the traditional keepers of the cultures from which I draw inspiration. It is this sharing of unique values, cultures, and ecologies that I find most significant about making and appreciating art in its many forms. I consider the art making process to be a working relationship with both people and the planet, and Indigenous Art speaks to me because it is so deeply rooted in our common humanity and connection to the natural world.

I also believe that making art can and should be a civic responsibility and collaborative process that helps us answer important questions and achieve common goals, including tackling urgent humanitarian challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, the privatization of public resources, and the injustices that result from our failing economic model of infinite growth on a finite planet. A difficult truth that one learns when working in any area of resource management is that certain groups suffer more than others from a lack of access to critical resources and public services, as well as from political and corporate injustice, irresponsibility, and corruption. For example, here in Arizona the Covid19 Pandemic had an outsized impact on Low Income Residents, and on Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous communities, due to a lack of access to the basic health and human services that most people living in the United States take for granted.

Tucson is one of our nation’s poorest cities and class conflict is an elephant in the room. We should never forget that when authoritarian bodies take over a nation state, one of the first acts they impose on society is to suppress and silence artists and intellects by any means possible. This is because the arts are the furnace in which the status quo is melted down and the raw material from which positive changes can be fashioned. I believe that addressing societal injustice is an essential part of being a conservation professional and resident of this incredibly valuable part of the world, and I am constantly in awe of the amazing work done by all the socially minded NGO’s who counter the proliferation of arms and dark presence of Raytheon and the military industrial complex with a message of peace and sustainability, and by environmental NGO’s like Save the Santa Rita Mountains, who work tirelessly to stop international mining corporations from devastating our landscape, Borderlands Restoration, The Sky Island Alliance, Tucson Audubon Society, The Ironwood Tree Experience, the Center for Biological Diversity, and many others who are working with limited resources to build a better world from the bottom up.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Alan Ruiz Berman is a Mexican & American, Tucson, Arizona based, conservation biologist, nonprofit organization communications and development specialist, educator, author-storyteller, and artist-illustrator. Alan has coordinated grassroots programs in more than five countries including Costa Rica, New Zealand, Mexico, and the Western Caribbean, and here in Pima County he works as a naturalist guide, tourism logistics coordinator, communications specialist, and has an active art practice. By collaborating with his local community to help integrate the visual arts, the humanities, and science, Alan believes that he can help bring diverse people together around the goal of building a more hopeful and just tomorrow.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
What I most appreciate about living in the greater Phoenix area is that there is a world class University that draws people from all over the world, proximity to my Mexican homeland and the unique culture of Sonora, a vibrant Indigenous community, and an eclectic mix of people that includes bohemian artists and nomads, conservative rural Americans, stylish suit wearing types, people of Mexican roots, and an abundance of students from across the nation and world. When my friends and family visit Tucson there is too much to do in a short amount of time, but I always take them to Revolutionary Grounds Cafe, which has an amazing book shop or to Exo Cafe – Bar Crisol in Barrio Viejo because they have a deep appreciation of Sonoran Desert ecology and a style that is completely unique to our city. Next is getting outdoors! I like to take people to summit Mount Wrightson, hike the various layered ecosystems of Mount Lemmon (Babad Do’ag, or Frog Mountain), and explore both sides of Saguaro National Park. I also like to head further South to Chiricahua National Monument, traditional home of the Chiricahua Ndee (Apache) and to the grasslands that fringe the state’s southern border, sometimes crossing into Sonora to visit the Pinacate UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and the Gulf of California where I studied marine biology and worked with sustainable fisheries. I think it is essential to make more Americans comfortable with the idea of traveling safely into Mexico to change perspectives and encourage bi-national collaboration. I also like to have a good cumbia dance at the Hotel Congress with local DJ’s or catch a concert at the Rialto.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?

I want to give a shout out to my parents who work in two of our Nation’s poorest cities in CT and set a high bar for being compassionate and progressive citizens, working across social, economic, and physical boundaries and borders to build bridges NOT walls. I want to shout out to my brother, Christian Ruiz Berman, a professional painter who recently had his first museum show in Kansas, and who tackles social and environmental themes with his brush – art-appreciation, science, and excursions to spectacular places have always brought our family together around nature and the creative spirit. Here in Tucson, I want to give a shout out to Peggy Turk Boyer, the Director Emeritus of the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans (CEDO) – the person and organization that brought me here, Solar Culture Gallery, Mike Schwartz and the artists community in Tucson, to Dennis Caldwell, a local conservation-minded artist who shares his knowledge of the region with me, Michaele Cramer, a master gardener at Productive Patches – an ecology based landscaping company, and someone who changed my life by making me more aware of the beauty of nature and opportunities available to me, Marcus Whitaker with whom I plan cross cultural expeditions to Mexico with Sonoran Rovers LLC, to Ben Wilder, Robert Villa, and the Desert Ecology Lab, the National Phenology Network, to Sonya Norman and the Sonoran Desert Museum which organizes exotic species control programs and other critical conservation measures, to the BLM and National Park Service for stewarding our public lands and wildlife, and most importantly to the Tohono O’odham and other Indigenous people who stewarded our landscapes since time immemorial and who are always generous with their knowledge and goodwill.

Website: www.seapen.org

Instagram: @observationalecology

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-ruiz-berman-a025b141/

Other: @obrasdealan (Instagram art page)