Mealworms, artists, and researchers all have one thing in common: art. That’s just one theme captured in a two-day SCI_ART symposium hosted by SAW gallery this weekend in celebration of its 50th anniversary. This birthday event is packed with varied programming, including performances, panels, and book launches that celebrate collaborations between artists, scientists, academics, and nature.
Recoil Performance Group. Photo provided.
What does a partnership between science and art look like? Anything from Styrofoam-eating mealworms to a living lab filled with mushrooms. Symposium attendees can witness work that sparks conversation on everything from social issues and climate change to humanizing technology and creating novel ways of viewing the world. The event also includes a screening of the documentary Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change by Nunavut director Zacharias Kunuk and researcher Ian Mauro, which exposes the warming Arctic in the first-ever Inuktitut-language film on this topic.
“For the past 50 years, SAW has presented challenging and innovative art practices,” says Jason St-Laurent, SAW curator, in an email to Apt613. “All of the artists featured in the exhibition are addressing pressing environmental issues with projects that redefine our notions of what art is. Our mandate at SAW is to showcase socially and politically engaged art, so it made sense to highlight the advances and innovations in the field of art and science. We wanted to bring local artists and thinkers in dialogue with national and international counterparts, which is something we always strive to do at SAW.”
Fungi terrarium by Annie Thibault. Photo provided.
For example, “Policy Riot” is a panel that will examine how government, researchers, and artists work through the challenging issues of our time. Panelists will discuss ways to create the right conditions for these kinds of collaborations, which seem to be growing in recent years.
In addition to collaborations between people, the symposium explores the exchange between species with the HUMAN / NATURE exhibition, featuring the works of two science and art trailblazers in the Ottawa region, Annie Thibault and Marie-Jeanne Musiol. Thibault’s art emphasizes the adaptability of mushrooms via terrariums and sculpture, while Musiol showcases herbariums and plant imprints recorded in an electromagnetic field. Their work exemplifies the field of bio art and will include unique elements like a fungi lab that will change and grow over the course of the installation until April 15.
Miroirs du cosmos by Marie-Jeanne Musiol. Photo provided.
HUMAN / NATURE also includes an installation by Recoil Performance Group from Copenhagen in which 200,000 mealworms eat away at Styrofoam sculptures, which they transform into organic matter: “Although this is not necessarily a solution for our wasteful culture, it does highlight the potential of working with other species in collaborative ways,” says St-Laurent. The exhibition opens Saturday evening and will feature music from DJ Uyarakq of Nuuk, Greenland. Ottawa chef Harriet Clunie will also present a special mushroom-inspired menu.
Reflecting on 50 years of the Ottawa-based gallery, St-Laurent said that in 2019, SAW undertook a major expansion project to accommodate a growing audience, and at the time some feared that the gallery would institutionalize.
“We’re proud to report that our punk and rebel spirit is very much alive. We might be 50 years old, but we’re still cool.”
The SCI_ART Symposium takes place at the SAW gallery from March 25 at 9am until the evening of March 26. HUMAN / NATURE takes place on March 25 from 6-9pm. All events are free of charge. SAW is fully wheelchair accessible and SAW Video is located on the main floor above the Arts Court building.
.gif)