Since completing the Whitney Independent Study Program in 1985, Mark Dion has exhibited consistently and internationally, receiving the Smithsonian Museum of American Art’s Lucelia Award in 2008. Emerging as part of the institutional critique generation, his practice covers drawing, installation, research, travel and collecting, often working with numerous collaborators. A recent project, ‘Neukom Vivarium’, created an architectural ‘life support’ system for the eco-system of a fallen Hemlock Tree in Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park. Dion’s installation based on the work of some lesser-known Victorian naturalists, ‘Tropical Collectors (Bates, Spruce and Wallace)’, is part of BALTIC’s current exhibition ‘A Duck for Mr Darwin’.