Plankton Imaginary

Nov. 03rd, 2024
Art and science both make us think and rethink the world. In a creative dialogue between science and art, Meike Vogt, senior scientist working in the Environmental Physics group at ETH Zurich, and Riikka Tauriainen [link], visual artist currently working in the EcoArtLab at the Bern Academy of Arts on the research project Plankton Ecosystems (Pro Helvetia Synergies), decided to tell the story of plankton and its fundamental role for marine life and climate. For “Experimental Ecology” [link], a traveling exhibition displayed most recently at St Gallen’s Kunstmuseum [link], they created a visual installation named “Plankton Imaginary” [link]. On Nov. 3rd, they also organized an all-day open arts lab and a two-hour arts-meets-science workshop in the exhibition space. The open arts lab offered a wide range of activities that invited participants to imagine, create, feel, and experiment with science. They could sculpt their own plankton specie with clay, craft a jelly fish with rice lamps and colored tissue, draw plankton inspired by live sample from local lakes and an artistic plankton movie using citizen science microscopes, and explore the effects of ocean acidification through hands-on experiments. 62 families, spanning all age groups, took part in the interactive open arts lab. Eleven more people participated in the Science-Art workshop which started with a presentation introducing the different art pieces of the installation. This was followed by drawing exercises and a round-table discussion about plankton, life, and the universe. Overall, a very successful day where science and art came together to ignite curiosity and inspire new perspectives on the world.