Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Artists, Scientists and Educators Collaborate: "DNA of Creativity" Exhibition at OMA Shares Their Work

Michelle Kurtis Cole "Fragiles"  kiln casted and hand carved transparent glass   2014
DNA of Creativity
Collaborative Project
Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside CA
Article written by Cathy Breslaw

The DNA of Creativity exhibition at the Oceanside Museum of Art is the result of an approximately three year collaboration between forty artists, scientists and educators. Spearheaded by the San Diego Visual Arts Network and the recipient of grant money for this project, it was designed to examine the connections between art and science and to enhance the understanding of the general public about these topics. During the development of this project, four teams emerged, each group focusing on separate initiatives.  The teams include: Sea Changes:ACT, Urban Succession, PolyAesthetic Mapping: The Muses, and SD View Art Now.  The project Sea Changes:ACT brings awareness to critical ocean changes, climate change, plastic pollution and over-fishing through their display of coral-like glass art pieces, sculptures, video and a virtual underwater installation - all of which were designed to promote community action around these issues.  The Urban Succession team worked collaboratively to design, fabricate and install a series of organically shaped sculptural homes for urban organisms specific to San Diego. This team asked the question: “What if we embraced the organisms(spiders, possums,  lizards, skunks, raccoons, crickets, etc) as equal citizens of the earth and shared the space with them?” Their exhibited sculptures all have practical application to actual physical sites in the San Diego area, designed to help equalize our ecosystem. The team PolyAesthetic Mapping: The Muses investigated the relationship between the concepts of ‘aesthetics’  and ‘mapping’, in an effort to make sense out of our expressions of human emotional experience and a mathematical model was designed to help explain it.  They also devised nine ‘muses’ in an effort to create categories  of an aesthetic  experience, further helping us to understand how we navigate between ‘thinking’ and a ‘sensory experience’. Lastly, SD View Art Now created a way to locate current accurate information about visual arts events taking place in San Diego county through the use of the latest technology linking the San Diego Visual Arts Network calendar events with mobile and home devices. Information is keyed into the user’s current location using GPS and can be accessed by either residents or visitors in this geographical area.  This exhibition is packed with art gleaned from long term collaborations related to the results of the four teams. This show is a complex yet intriguing intellectually and visually stimulating experience. There are hands on educational opportunities as well as panel discussions planned throughout the life of this exhibition which ends August 3rd. Further information can be gained by visiting each team’s websites:

Sea Changes: ACT,  www.seachanges.org
Urban Succession,  www.urban succession.com
PolyAesthetic Mapping: The Muses(PAMM), www.polyamm.weebly.com
SD View Art Now, www.sdvan.weebly.com

Vicki Leon   Photoscopia   2009 - 2014   metal,glass,acrylic












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