"While sifting through the sediment from the sunken bateaux site to try to find live testate amoebae, I found many tests that had once been inhabited. Studying the empty amoeba tests through the scanning electron microscope reminded me of the shipwrecks in that they both look rather desolate. In this drawing I shrank the bateau down to the size of an amoeba test [shell] and placed the two types of structures in one landscape."
- Artist Elinor Mossop.

2009 Art/Science, "Raising the Fleet" Tri-Exhibition

In 2009, an art/science tri-exhibit was held - one in the Lake George Arts Project Courthouse Gallery, a second at "The Sunken Fleet of 1758" shipwreck preserve, and the third on an Internet website managed by the Museum of Underwater Archaeology. The unique project commemorated the 250th anniversary (1759-2009) of the British raising some of their "Sunken Fleet of 1758." The endeavor featured single-celled organisms called testate amoebae that were collected in 2008 and 2009 from lake bottom sediment adjacent to sunken bateaux. Dr. Sam Bowser, a cell biologist, and science artist Elinor Mossop used archaeological shipwreck drawings provided by Bateaux Below to create micro-scale 3-D surfaces onto which testate amoebae were released. Mossop used light and scanning-electron microscopy to analyze the amoebae encountering the rendered archaeological drawings, and then she created interpretive artwork that explored the concept of scale. This project informed people about underwater archaeology at the "Sunken Fleet of 1758" as well as the scientific study of amoebae found in Lake George.




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