The following are brief descriptions of the projects (taken directly from the original proposals) selected for Artist-in-Residence program awards. These awards are designed to facilitate collaboration between artists and scientists to spur creative thinking and innovation.
2024 Awardees
Elemental Explorations
PIs: Sonja Kuftinec, College of Liberal Arts; Luverne Seifert, College of Liberal Arts; Kara Baldwin, College of Biological Sciences
Aristotle laid the foundation for two systems of knowledge–scientific and theatrical. He proposed four elements that constitute all matter: earth, fire, air, and water. Theater-maker Jacques LeCoq translated Aristotle into embodied poetic form. Elemental Explorations proposes to dramatize this convergence of science and physical poetics at UMN’s Cedar Creek Ecosystem Reserve. Since the 1930s the Reserve has hosted an array of long-term research projects in a site known for its ecosystemic diversity. We propose to bring four of these projects–each associated with one element–to theatrical life in a processional performance along the Cedar Bog Trail. This project builds on a spring 2024 performance inspired by Traditional Ecological Knowledge and created with theater students and biology faculty. The Earth element focuses on mycorrhizal research--how fungi connect the forest in a “wood-wide web.” We will also explore how Fire sustains forest and grassland ecosystems. Another project investigates how moss and lichen index Air quality. Several projects on the Bog trail examine how Water level influences plant growth and death. We willll use Lecoq’s elemental embodiments to animate this research with students. We hope to inspire students and audiences to recognize their place in biological ecosystems in order to affect these systems more positively.
The Rules of Life - A Biomedical Engineering & Choreography Collaboration
PIs: Carl Flink, College of Liberal Arts; David Odde, College of Science and Engineering; Paolo Provenzano, College of Science and Engineering
A diagnosis of glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, is often considered a “death sentence” for a patient. Glioblastoma is characterized by a diverse array of cells that create a challenging heterogenous tumor microenvironment. Decoding the rules of the cell-cell interactions in this tumor could potentially provide new insight into how to better treat these and other aggressive tumors. Cancer researcher David Odde refers to this as the rules of life. "Melding the research of biomedical engineers Paolo Provenzano and Odde and their lab communities with that of choreographer Carl Flink and his dance company Black Label Movement, this project will explore the multiple layers of potential meaning “the rules of life” can have in biology, human relationships and aesthetic-socio-political movements. Two performative events - a site specific dance on the Bohemian River Flats beneath the Washington Ave. Bridge and an evening-length dancework for the stage - will utilize Odde and Flink’s rapid modeling system called Bodystorming to move beyond the notion that arts and science collaborations are generally a means to creatively communicate research and reveal ways in which artists and scientists can conduct substantive research leading to innovative scientific and artistic trajectories springing from the intersection of both realms.
2023 Awardees
Katydid Songs and Silent Crickets: Poems in the Grasses
PI: Kathryn Nuernberger, College of Liberal Arts
Co-PI: Marlene Zuk, Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, College of Biological Sciences
At the height of the pandemic, Marlene Zuk invited me to echolocate katydids on a walk around a park near campus. Her research trips to Hawaii to study species of uniquely silent crickets had been canceled. I too had been unusually silent as I swam through a deep grief over the death of someone dear. Dr. Zuk gestured to a strip of lawn; those songs are crickets. She pointed to the trees; those hums are cicadas. In the waist-high grasses, we would hear katydids. Dr. Zuk taught me to listen, wait, then creep carefully, following after one particular song among many, until I found a beautiful creature, bent-legged and iridescent-winged, humming into the wind. For this project, Dr. Zuk and I will continue our echolocation walks and conversations about the ecologies of local pond and grassland habitats. I will also write poems in response to Dr. Zuk’s scholarly work on crickets, through visits to her lab to see experiments in progress. During this project I will write insect poems that answer the griefs of climate change and mass extinction unfolding around us with songs of hope and beauty punctuating such terrible silences. The work will culminate with a public poetry reading.
Disembodied/Reembodied: The Gaze and Dysphoria of Medical Images of Women’s Bodies
PI: Jenny Schmid, College of Liberal Arts
Co-PIs: Jaime Konerman-Sease, Center for Bioethics, Office of Academic Clinical Affairs; Emily Beck, Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine; Lois Hendrickson, Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine
Disembodied/Reembodied resources the history of images of disembodied female anatomy in the extensive collections of the Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine to uncover contemporary experiences of women’s interactions with reproductive health and current political conversations surrounding their/our access to health care. This project combines the skills and research of four collaborators—a bioethicist, two research librarians, and an artist-printmaker—to inspire a limited edition folio composed of etchings, text and digital prints. This collaboration will culminate in an onsite and online exhibition that merges past and present images, employing an artistic re/interpretation of history to peel back the intertwining layers of medical power and social expectation to reassert the agency of female patients. The project draws attention to the disembodied approach to female pain and lack of autonomy and the history of images that subconsciously promote this perspective at a crucial time when women’s bodies and medical decisions are being discussed in the public sphere. Working across centuries, Disembodied/Reembodied employs printmaking techniques to flatten time and question and reimagine the power of images that have greatly impacted female reproductive healthcare.