On the occasion of the commemoration of the 190th anniversary of Charles Darwin's visit to the Galapagos Islands, the Universidad Espiritu Santo (UEES) presented the book «Charles Darwin and the Galapagos Islands in the Equatorial Pacific».» from Dr. Roberto Jiménez Santistevan. This innovative work is a book-object in accordion format of 63 meters in a straight line, The back cover of the book, displayed half-open and folded at the back, functions as a back cover.
“This book is a bridge between Darwin's gaze and our contemporary urgency to understand the ocean,” the author noted.
With 300 chronological pages, documents everything from Darwin's original notes in 1835 to the oceanographic events recorded by the BAE Orion and the Atlantis mission. Between NOAA satellite graphics, laboratory photographs and delicate watercolors of marine organisms, this piece reveals how scientific documentation and visual poetics merge to rekindle our gaze on the ocean.
Roberto Jiménez Santistevan holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Guayaquil, with postgraduate degrees in marine sciences (University of Oslo; Duke University), marine plankton (University of Valparaíso) and aquaculture (Texas A&M; University of Arizona). He was head of the Marine Biology Division of INOCAR (1972-1980) and director of the National Fisheries Institute (1980-1987), as well as a Fulbright visiting professor at the California Academy of Sciences. With more than 40 years dedicated to the study of marine biodiversity, he is the author of three books on aquaculture, one on shrimp diseases, and 65 scientific articles. In parallel, he has produced hundreds of drawings of marine species based on microscopic observations, material that feeds this artist's book.
The presentation was made by a panel composed of: Roberto Jimenez (artist); Pritha Tutasi (Oceanographer, Oceanographic Institute of the Navy); Fernando Espinoza (Director of Research, UEES) and Ivanna Santoro (Cultural manager and curator).
