Art and Science go well together. One does not have to look too far for inspiration when you are at a research institute founded by Homi Jehangir Bhabha. Bhabha’s love for art is no secret. Every student or visitor has been awestruck by the paintings in his collection which are still on display at TIFR, Mumbai. I was no exception to this rule. When I entered the foyer of the Homi Bhabha auditorium as a first year student in 2014, I spent a considerable amount of time gaping at ‘The Critic’ painted by Walter Langhammer. Given this traditional passion for both, art and science, the relatively new TIFR campus in Hyderabad undertook a unique initiative, called the ‘Art and Science Dialogue’, primarily to spread education through art.
We found eager collaborators in members from the S.N. School of Fine Arts, Hyderabad, in this mission. The artists, led by Dr. Baishali Ghosh, spent a week at the research institute, visiting labs, interacting with the students and exchanging ideas.
During one such lab tour, two budding artists, Neha and Rajat, got fascinated by the beautiful patterns that emerged from the arrangement of cells as they looked through a confocal microscope. The repetitive patterns inspired them to come up with the first installation. Rajat made an amalgamation of multiple live cell movies that were acquired by the scientists. These movies were then projected onto a screen – an unusual one, though! It was a white canopy, designed by Neha, to depict ‘skin’ (Installation 1).
Dhaneesh usually paints with charcoal and is fixated with lines. He found a teammate in Sumit, a graduate student in Dr. T. N. Narayanan’s lab, who discussed the use of graphene in some of his experiments. A graphene sheet consists of a single layer of carbon atoms, where all the atoms are arranged in hexagonal lattices. On seeing a sheet of graphene, he decided to create a visual representation of a hexagon, the repeating unit in graphene structure.
Awdesh (from S. N. School of Fine Arts) teamed up with researchers from Cell Biology and Mechanobiology. Through his conversations with them, he learnt about the scientific method and found the concept fascinating. The students of Dr. T. Das’s lab acquainted him with their topic of research – the phenomenon of cell migration. He decided to create a laboratory set-up which showcased his perspective on this topic, modifying the context slightly to ‘migration of humans’.
Once the ideas were finalized and various components of the artwork created, the participants were faced with the mammoth task of putting up all the installations within 24 hours. With considerable planning, trial-and-error and heavy lifting, around thirty researchers and artists joined forces and successfully put up all three installations. Amazingly, these individuals, who were strangers barely a week ago, had brainstormed and worked together tirelessly to install larger-than-life structures in a systematic fashion.
This initiative did not simply aim to produce decorative pieces of artwork. It served as a platform for artists to freely express their perspectives on the research conducted by TIFR scientists, and as a form of inspiration for scientists.
Dhaneesh’s installation, made from twigs and sticks, reflected the strong use of straight lines. Once you see this structure, you cannot help but wonder the significance of the tapering end. Dhaneesh said that he keeps it open to interpretation. This installation contained an additional element – sound. Rajat, a student of Fine Arts, recorded the sounds produced by most of the equipments he encountered while visiting the labs. It is amusing how, over time, one gets habituated to certain repetitive sounds of a machine, to the extent that they tune these sounds out until they are pleasantly reintroduced to the rhythm created by this machine via an art installation.
Interestingly, people from different scientific backgrounds came up with their own interpretations of this installation (Installation 2). One thought of the structure as an embodiment of the journey undertaken by a PhD student while another envisioned each twig as representative of a scientific problem and how all the twigs were directed towards one common goal of unearthing the myriad mysteries of science.
In Awdesh’s depiction of the ‘lab bench’, one could watch a video of people migrating in vast numbers when they looked through the microscope. When individuals migrate to a new place, they slowly adapt to it. They encounter different people, face adverse situations, conquer their problems and finally merge with environment. The installation also contained multiple symbolic portrayals of these consequent alterations to one’s disposition, each shown with the help of commonly used laboratory instruments.
When an artist-scientist collaboration over a short span of one week can result in such creative installations, one cannot help but wonder what could be achieved with longer collaborations of this nature. In this context, Mae Jemisoni’s observations become quite relatable: “The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin… or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they are manifestations of the same thing.”
About the Author:
Anusheela Chatterjee (@sci_motley on Twitter) obtained a Masters degree by research from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. She studied the regulation of mitochondrial density in neurons using C. elegans as a model system. Currently, she is the science writer of TIFR Hyderabad. In addition, she also carries out various science communication activities in TIFR Hyderabad; which are aimed at both reaching out to the public and honing the communication skills of graduate students.
Editors:
Aparna Shah (aka @Neuro_Musings on Twitter) is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. She is exploring the role of microRNAs (or gene-silencing ‘second messengers’) in regulating neuronal function. While she is fascinated by both order and disorder in the brain, she has spent the last decade obsessing over the neurobiological underpinnings of depression, Parkinson’s disease, and drug addiction. She is passionate about science communication, education and outreach and believes that the best way to learn something is to teach it!
Paurvi Shinde has a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences (Immunology) with expertise in signaling pathways that boost T cell expansion/survival. She currently works as a Post Doc Fellow at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, where she studies the pathogenesis and immune correlates of protection for HSV-2 infection. Apart from research, she loves editing scientific articles, listening to podcasts and hiking in the beautiful pacific northwest. Follow her on Linkedin.
Illustrators:
Disha Chauhan did her Ph.D. in IRBLLEIDA, University of Lleida, Spain in Molecular and Developmental Neurobiology. She has post-doctoral experience in Cell Biology of Neurodegenerative diseases and is actively seeking a challenging research position in academia/industry. Apart from Developmental Neurobiology, she is also interested in Oncology. She is passionate about visual art (Illustration, painting and photography) and storytelling through it. She enjoys reading, traveling, hiking and is also dedicated to raising scientific awareness about Cancer. Follow her on Instagram.
Saurabh Gayali recently completed his Ph.D. in Plant Molecular Biology from National Institute of Plant Genome Research (JNU), New Delhi. Currently he is DBT RA at IGIB (New Delhi) and his research focuses on finding binding associations of Indian plant metabolites with human pathogen proteins, creating a platform for future plant extract based drug discovery. He has keen interest in data analysis, visualization and database management. He is a skilled 2D/3D designer with a specific interest in scientific illustration. In leisure, Saurabh plays guitar and composes music, does photography or practices programming. Follow him on Instagram.
The contents of Club SciWri are the copyright of PhD Career Support Group for STEM PhDs {A US Non-Profit 501(c)3}. (PhDCSG is an initiative of the alumni of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The primary aim of this group is to build a NETWORK among scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs).
This work by Club SciWri is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
