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Zoë Lescaze

@zoelescaze

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Journalist covering art and science
Author of Paleoart @taschen
Host of the podcast MIND GAMES

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THRILLED to announce MIND GAMES, a new podcast hosted by me and my brilliant friend @alicehines_. Join us as we go spelunking in the wild world of NLP: a set of hypnosis tricks and life hacks connecting cult leaders, army spies, pickup artists, Olympic athletes, and business tycoons. The craziest thing…NLP might actually work. Check out the trailer (link in bio). New episodes every Tuesday starting Jan 20.

Endless thanks to dream producers @kfosborn @______rider @daralookpotts @mhattikudur & all our friends @kscope_nyc @iheartpodcast .

📸 @willcottonnyc by @zoelescaze

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9 months ago

Dinos Are Forever

Despite vanishing from Earth 66 million years ago, dinosaurs are one of our favorite cultural fascinations. In this new compact volume, writer @zoelescaze and artist Walton Ford scour the globe for dinosaur paintings, mosaics, murals, and more.

Dating from early 19th century to the digital era, this collection is a celebration of imaginative pictorial traditions.

‘Paleoart. Visions of the Prehistoric Past. 45th Ed.’ is available on TASCHEN.com and in store.

Inostrancevia, devouring a Pareiasaurus. Alexei Petrovich Bystrow, 1933 Credit: Borrissiak Paleontological Institute RAS

#TASCHENBooks #Paleoart by @zoelescaze

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24 days ago

What about dioramas has kept Hiroshi Sugimoto coming back for 50 years? I wrote about the beguiling photos that launched his career for the new issue of Aperture.

Many thanks to @michaelfamighetti @zack__hatfield @aperturefnd

📸 Sugimoto, “Earliest Human Relatives,” 1994 (detail)

#hiroshisugimoto #diorama #naturalhistorymuseum #mediumformat #photography

Sugimoto, “Polar Bear,” 1975 (detail)

Sugimoto, “Ordovician Period,” 1992 (detail)

Sugimoto, “Hyena - Jackal - Vulture,” 1975 (detail)

“Stop Time,” the new issue of Aperture guest edited by Hiroshi Sugimoto, is out now. taken in American Museum of Natural History by @zoelescaze

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2 months ago

Hurtling down like a rogue missile, the meteorite crashed through her ceiling, ricocheted off the radio, and smashed into her left hip.

I wrote about Hodges, her meteorite custody battle, an Arctic meteorite heist, and the unlikely allure of these (often pretty boring looking) rocks for the 2026 @other.almanac

Swipe for excerpts.

#meteor #naturalhistorymuseum #astronomy #space

“…this deceptively massive conversation piece from interplanetary space enthralls from multiple perspectives and is the quintessence of an iron meteorite.”
— Christie’s lot essay, 2022

When Robert Peary, one of the explorers credited with “discovering” the North Pole, noticed the Inuit people he employed in Greenland using iron blades, he was confused. There was nothing but snow in all directions; they weren’t smelting ore. He inquired after the source.

His guides took him on a multiday journey over the ice to a trio of giant meteorites named Dog, Tent, and Woman: the essentials one needs to survive the tundra.

The tragic and disturbing story of the surviving child, Minik Wallace, has been widely covered. For a deep dive on the meteorite theft, I recommend “A meteorite in Greenland: Exploration, Exploitation, and Knives from Space” (WBUR podcast by Dean Russell and Ben Brock Johnson, 2022).

Years later, Hodges’ landlady took her first look at the meteorite she fought so hard for. “It looked like a big old rusty rock to me,” she told a reporter in 1985.

Most meteorites do seem dull. They tend to lack the “mango patinas” extolled by auction houses and look more like lumpy hunks of graphite. Their most charming feature, however, might be the disconnect between their utterly lackluster appearances and stunningly cool Petri-dish interiors.

Paleoart by Joschua Knüppe, based on research by Melanie During.

That’s all she wrote! (Jk the actual essay is longer.) Thanks for reading if you made it this far! Happy meteor shower season. ☄️

And many, many thanks again to @anachron_ & @other.almanac for publishing the piece. Go get your hands on a copy if you haven’t already! by @zoelescaze

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2 months ago

We hear a lot about the big prices of dinosaurs at auction but not the problems with this market. I get into them in my new piece for @financialtimes . As one of my sources said, “caveat emptor.”

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#auction #dinosaur #gus #fossils by @zoelescaze

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3 months ago

Swale’s Floating Garden @medinatriennial is in T Magazine’s Art issue!

Zoë Lescaze writes A History of American Utopia in 10 Acts

“…Climate change is a hyperobject, according to Morton, which is what makes it so difficult to combat. Rather than despair at the scope of our current environmental crisis, though, the artist Mary Mattingly creates works of art that double as pilot programs in how societies might rethink broken systems. In 2016, she docked “Swale,” a barge supporting a garden of edible plants, in the South Bronx for locals with otherwise limited access to fresh produce. Anyone could come and pick as many herbs, fruits and vegetables as they wanted. Foraging in city parks is illegal, but the monumental sculpture helped local advocates and Parks Department officials establish the Bronx River Foodway, the first parkland where foraging is permitted. A new incarnation of “Swale” called “Floating Garden” is slated to return to New York City later this year”

Thank you Zoë Lescaze for believing in this project!

@tmagazine @zoelescaze @area__design @swalenyc by @zoelescaze

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4 months ago

All episodes of MIND GAMES are now available — listen wherever you get your podcasts.

📷@willcottonnyc

#truecrime #investigativepodcast #psychologythriller #podcastrecommendation by @zoelescaze

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5 months ago

Lowkey obsessed with East Lansing after reporting this story on the art & science of darkness for @nytimes. I learned about circadian rhythms and the truly cataclysmic impacts of artificial light at night with artist @j_tichy and his scientist collaborators, held some hissing cockroaches at the @msu_bughouse & found the world’s finest moist towlette and Pez museums.

Footage sped up for this flawed medium. Tichy’s installation @msubroad is actually a slow 20-minute experience I recommend experiencing in full.

#science #lightpollution #journalism #scienceart #earthday taken in Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at MSU by @zoelescaze

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5 months ago

I loved reporting this story! (My little ER visit notwithstanding.) Here are some visual notes.

1. Habacuc’s yarn turning purple. Unlike most natural dyes, tixinda doesn’t need a mordant to bind it to fibers. It smells like the sea.
2. The snails mainly eat chitons, another kind of mollusk that attach themselves to rocks in the tidal zone.
3. A pile of broken chiton shells: evidence of poaching in these protected bays. Don’t order seafood cócteles if you visit Huatulco! They often contain snails & chitons.
4. Microscopic enlargement of the radula, the feeding organ snails use to penetrate other shelled mollusks
5. It’s tiny! Just that little pink dot in the droplet on the dish
6. Habacuc searching for snails. Insanely nimble at 85.
7. The largest snails Rafael found that day. These have become rare
8. Scorpion I found in my pants one morning
9. But it was a wasp that got me. Turns out I’m very allergic! (Dorky.) This is hour 3 on an IV after passing out
9. Worth it 📸 @mariajosezavala_

#oaxaca #caracol #science #journalism #conservation taken in Bahias De Huatulco, Oaxaca by @zoelescaze

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6 months ago

Have you listened to our latest episode yet? Dive into the Cult of Neurolinguistic Programming with guests @alicehines_ and @zoelescaze ✨ by @zoelescaze

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6 months ago

I wrote the cover story of today’s @nytimes Science Times!

Species names may seem like inside baseball, but these classifications can have real implications for wildlife and Indigenous communities.

The Mixtec people of Pinotepa de Don Luis have been milking marine snails for amethyst dye in rocky coves on the coast of Oaxaca for at least 1,500 years. This is a story about them and their recent collaboration with biologists to solve a few centuries of scientific confusion surrounding the snails central to their culture.

Thank you to @mariajosezavala_, who brought this story to my attention and took the knockout photos, and to the tintoreros & scientists for their trust

#oaxaca #conservation #science #journalism taken in Bahias De Huatulco, Oaxaca by @zoelescaze

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6 months ago

There’s a form of covert hypnosis that cult leaders love. It may have even been used on you already without your permission.

Learn more about the science of persuasion—and how to protect yourself from manipulators—in season one of MIND GAMES

Drop “hypnosis” in the comments and we’ll dm you a link.

#psychology #nlp #journalist #truecrime by @zoelescaze

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6 months ago