Pérez Art Museum Miami

Mark Dion’s South Florida Wildlife Rescue Unit is a large art installation that combines real and imaginary elements to explore how humans affect the natural world. It was first created in 2006 for the Miami Art Museum, now called Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). 

The installation shows a pretend animal rescue team working in the Florida Everglades. Its main feature is a full-size vehicle and rescue equipment created for a made-up group called the South Florida Wildlife Rescue Unit. This team is shown as rushing into nature to protect endangered plants, animals, and ecosystems. The scene includes mannequins dressed like rescue workers, tools used in wildlife care, and a display filled with equipment. Although the rescue team is fictional, the setup looks very real. Dion uses this to poke fun at slow government responses to preservation while also showing respect for local environmental activism. 

The artwork is divided into three parts. Each part tells the story of a different time in the Everglades’ history: exploration (late 1700s to mid-1800s), exploitation (mid-1800s to early 20th century), and preservation and restoration (mid-20th century to today). These sections show how people’s attitudes toward the Everglades have changed—from exploring and damaging it to working to protect and restore it. 

Mark Dion is a conceptual artist. This means he focuses more on ideas than just on the final artwork. His projects often combine art, science, history, ecology, and archaeology. He uses methods from science—like field research, digging, and collecting—to build his installations. His artworks often look like museum exhibits or curiosity cabinets. These special cabinets, called Wunderkammern, were popular in the 1500s and 1600s and were used to display rare and unusual items. 

Over the years, Dion has worked with many museums, zoos, aquariums, and science centers. By copying their styles, he encourages people to think about how facts are presented and who decides what counts as knowledge. His art shows how science, culture, and politics are often connected. Dion wants viewers to reflect on how our surroundings—and the systems we are part of—shape what we believe and value. 

Dion is also interested in the idea of collecting. He asks questions like: Why do museums keep some objects and not others? What makes something worth saving? He encourages viewers to think about the difference between a “thing” and an “object,” and how both can help us learn about history and identity.