The Malaspina Expedition

In 1789, Italian-born Spanish naval officer Alejandro Malaspina set off to visit Spain's colonies in Asia and the Americas. For five years, he and his crew sailed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, discovering, cataloguing and analyzing flora, fauna, seas, people and lands. The Malaspina Expedition, as it came to be called, anticipated the global spirit of cross-discipline synergy that defines the twenty-first century. Yet Malaspina's account of his adventures remained largely unpublished for 100 years. The Malaspina Expedition presents the visual legacy of his expedition, combining maps, illustrations and scientific and artistic documents in the same boundary-crossing spirit as the expedition itself.