Mark Dion was born in 1961 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and lives and works in New York. Since the 1990s, this visual artist has been exploring the intersections between art and science. He is particularly interested in the idea of nature, and seeks to deconstruct the visual and ideological codes that have shaped human knowledge and experience of the natural world throughout history.

The unusual cabinets of curiosities he installs in cultural and scientific institutions ignore conventional classification - the artist rejecting any hierarchy between the old and the new, the commonplace and the rare, the noble and the vulgar. During his performances, he carries out excavations in unlikely places, often neglected by specialists. The objects discovered are preserved without distinction of value. Also a landscape archaeologist, Mark Dion is particularly interested in the disappearance of animals and the impact of human beings on their environment.