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Munfarid1/Creative Resilience
SubjectArt inspired by Covid-19 from women in science
Genrescientific graphic artworks
PublisherUNESCO
Publication date
2021
Media typemulti-media book and website
WebsiteCreative Resilience: Art by Women in Science

Creative Resilience: Art by Women in Science is a hybrid art exhibition and accompanying publication, produced in 2021 by the Gender Section of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The project aims to give visibility to women professionals working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). These scientists were selected based on their capability to express their professional experience in an artistic way. With short biographies and graphic reproductions of their artworks dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, the project provides a platform for women scientists to express their insights and creative responses to the pandemic.

The project was launched in 2021 and presented as a hybrid art exhibition at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris and later at the World EXPO 2020 in Dubai. The featured artworks, which span a wide range of artistic mediums including painting, sculpture, digital and graphic art, reflect the diversity of women in science across the globe and their personal perspectives on the pandemic.

Aiming to inspire and motivate more women to choose STEM studies and professions, the project was also conceived to serve as a means for reducing the gender gap in these professions.[1]

Context

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In July 2021, UNESCO announced a global call for artworks created by women working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Applicants were asked to submit personal information about their work in science and their artistic stories in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. The works presented in the exhibition were selected from over 200 candidates who submitted their creative expressions to UNESCO from July-August 2021. Following this, graphic reproductions of artworks by 54 women of science from more than 30 countries around the globe were selected and presented in a hybrid multi-media exhibition and accompanying publication.[1]

These women of science are neuroscientists, microbiologists, medical doctors, nurses, medical students, researchers, science communicators, engineers and mathematicians of all age groups and living in 31 countries: Argentina,[2] Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Czechia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Ecuador, Egypt,[3] France, Germany,[4] India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Latvia, Malaysia, Norway,[5] Pakistan,[6] the Philippines, Republic of Moldova, Saudi Arabia, Serbia,[7] Slovakia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,[8] and the United States of America.[9]

In her foreword to the exhibition catalogue, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay commented:

While both women and men face difficulties in the current global health crisis, women have had to struggle additionally with systemic gender-based inequalities. Women of science remain largely invisible, even though they have been at the frontlines combating the COVID-19 pandemic. This exhibition is the opportunity to show their unique experiences of how their lives and perspectives have been transformed by the pandemic. By making visible their visions, struggles and ambitions, these women scientists inspire us to make our societies more creative and gender-equal in the post Covid world.[10]

Exhibition

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Creative Resilience is not a traditional art exhibition, but rather exhibits the creative expressions of women working in science through public exhibitions and online presentations. These women in science had been using their artistic talents and combined them with their expertise in the fields of science, health, science communication and technology. Through painting, photography, computer drawing, prints, sculpture, crocheting or film, these “sci-artists” provided a testimony of how the global health pandemic has transformed the way people interact and how they are slowly emerging from it into new, transformed societies.

During the bi-annual UNESCO General Conference, the hybrid exhibition was launched on 26 October 2022 at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. The artworks and accompanying background of the artists were first screened live in a darkroom. The exhibition features of over 100 artworks by 54 women of science from all continents, including neuroscientists, microbiologists, doctors, nurses, medical students, researchers, science communicators, engineers, and mathematicians of all ages. At the same time, a selection of paintings from Creative Resilience was shown to the public on the fences outside of the UNESCO building.[1][11]

Under the theme "Connecting Minds, Creating the Future", the exhibition was also shown in the UNESCO pavilion at the Dubai World EXPO 2020 from 07 to 24 February 2022. Further, a website and a 360° virtual tour of Creative Resilience was published for visitors to virtually walk through the various creations of the participating science-artists and discover not only each artwork, but also the professional background of each author.[11][12][13]

Jamila Seftaoui, co-curator of the project and Director of Gender Equality at UNESCO, remarked on the idea of presenting these artworks: "The objective is to make women of science, their work and role in society and in the fight against Covid-19 more visible, while inspiring girls to pursue STEM professions."[14]

Some of the scientists featured in Creative Resilience transformed their scientific tools into art pieces, like biomedical researcher Marta Novotova from the Slovak Republic, who turned coloured microscopic pictures of SARS-CoV-2 infected cells into art pieces. Others used their talents to address the endemic disinformation that escalated in parallel with the health pandemic to "pull back the curtain of anxiety" with the facts, like Tahani Baakdhah, a neuroscientist from Saudi Arabia. Others highlighted the struggle of women to balance their lives as scientists with all the care and gendered domestic roles left to them during lockdown, like scientists Olivia Lee from Malaysia or Gabriela Miño Castro from Ecuador.

The work of French nurse Vanessa Braunstedter, aka GueRRir, was a series of black and white photographs that characterize the situation caused by COVID-19 as a war. Turkish architect and designer Zeynep Çakar presented a series of paintings that depict the chaos experienced throughout the pandemic and the traumatic emotional stress that closed in on people's inner worlds. Slovak archaeologist Petra Dragonidesová presented a single image of two hands in her work, Connections. Longing for a human touch that was denied even at the moment of death is prevalent in the work of Namrata Pandit from India who reflected on the “deep scar on the human psyche as a result of the pandemic, a trauma people will deal with for a long time after COVID-19 is over."

Avesta Rastan, a biomedical illustrator from Canada, designed a digital infographic to communicate how COVID-19 affects humans from the path of the virus in the air towards the lungs and explained, how the immune system reacts. Her goal was to “combat misinformation to empower people to take control of their actions”. Her illustration has been translated into 18 languages and received over 2 million views on social media.[15]

Eleonora Adami, a molecular biologist working as a postdoc at the Max Delbrück Center of Molecular Medicine of the Helmholtz Association in Germany, participated with her creative portrait of Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) that she arranged in front of a graphical representation of a coronavirus. According to Adami, this surreal reinterpretation of the pandemic pays tribute to all women in science and healthcare. Nightingale laid the foundation for professional nursing and was a pioneer in information design. “That is why she is an icon in the medical world,” said Adami. “She used visualization techniques to explain epidemiological data to people in the British government – similar to how many scientists provided information to politicians and the general public during the pandemic.”[4]

Finally, a leitmotif of the work of these fifty women scientists is, in the words of Mariana Carp from the Republic of Moldova, “to embrace change, value life, freedom and the creativity it can produce”. Together, these scientists use their art as a means to challenge the public to think critically about how they can transform everything from personal human relations to healthcare systems. But they also remind them that everyone is living on a connected planet. Sukanya Hasan, a zoologist from Bangladesh, showed how the tools people use to protect themselves from the COVID-19 virus are the same materials that they are using to harm the environment as well.[15]

Accompanying publication

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The accompanying publication Creative Resilience: Art by Women in Science was published both in print as well as in digital format in English and French. On 147 pages, it presents the background of the project, biographical information about the artists and images of their artworks. It is accessible for online viewing and free download at a dedicated UNESCO website.[16]

Similar activities by participants

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Radhika Patnala, an Indian-born neuroscientist and director of a start-up based in Munich, Germany, had published her 10-part series of digital illustrations Covid Dreams on the internet.[17] Following this, she was invited to participate in the Creative Resilience project as co-curator and with her own artworks.[18]

Aside from their participation in UNESCO's project, some women scientists have been present in similar public activities. Rebecca Kamen, Visiting Scholar and University of Pennsylvania Artist in Residence, exhibited her artwork at the Katzen Arts Center at American University in Washington, D.C., entitled "Reveal: The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discovery" in which she challenges visitors "to see the relationship between science, art, and their own creativity."[14]

Eugenie Hunsicker, a participating scientist at the exhibition and senior lecturer of mathematics at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom, produced a film entitled “Words of Women in Mathematics in the Time of Corona”, which was shown alongside the UNESCO exhibition.[19]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Creative Resilience: Art by Women in Science". www.unesco.org/. UNESCO. 2021. Retrieved 17 December 2023.
  2. ^ "Carla Di Luca en la exposición «Creative Resilience: Art by Women in Science" UNESCO". INTEMA - Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencia y Tecnología de Materiales (in Spanish). Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. 25 October 2021. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  3. ^ "Egypt to participate in UNESCO's Virtual Exhibition 'Creative Resilience – Art by Women in Science' on October 28". EgyptToday. 27 October 2021. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  4. ^ a b "Art by women in science". www.mdc-berlin.de. Max Delbrück Center. 17 November 2023. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  5. ^ "Knitting scientist explains Covid-19-numbers at UNESCO art exhibition | NMBU". www.nmbu.no. Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  6. ^ "A student of Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute artwork has been selected for UNESCO's Creative Resilience: Art by Women in Science - Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology - GIKI". 22 November 2021. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  7. ^ "Зорица Никић на изложби „Creative Resilience" – Art by Woman in Science – ФПУ". www.fpu.bg.ac.rs (in Serbian). 31 October 2021. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  8. ^ "Academic raises awareness of the impact of the pandemic on women in mathematics through new film". Loughborough University. 10 November 2021. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  9. ^ "Creative Resilience: Art by Women in Science". European Platform of Women Scientists EPWS. 23 November 2021. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  10. ^ Mitchell, Stuart (17 November 2021). "'Creative Resilience' to feature artworks by female Scientists reflecting on their pandemic experiences". Retrieved 18 December 2023.
  11. ^ a b "Creative Resilience: Art by Women in Science". www.unesco.org. Retrieved 17 December 2023.
  12. ^ Creative Resilience: Art by Women in Science, UNESCO, 18 November 2021, retrieved 15 December 2023
  13. ^ Creative Resilience: Art by Women in Science, pt. 2, UNESCO, 18 November 2021, retrieved 15 December 2023
  14. ^ a b "Rebecca Kamen exhibits work at UNESCO's "Creative Resilience" exhibition in Paris | Department of Physics and Astronomy". live-sas-physics.pantheon.sas.upenn.edu. University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  15. ^ a b "Creative Resilience: Art by Women in Science". unesdoc.unesco.org. UNESCO. pp. 11–12. Retrieved 17 December 2023.
  16. ^ "Creative Resilience: Art by Women in Science". unesdoc.unesco.org. 2021. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  17. ^ "International Women's Day: Illustrating the Covid-19 pandemic". 5 March 2021. Retrieved 17 December 2023.
  18. ^ "Creative Resilience: Art by Women in Science". unesdoc.unesco.org. UNESCO. pp. 14–18. Retrieved 17 December 2023.
  19. ^ "Academic raises awareness of the impact of the pandemic on women in mathematics through new film". Loughborough University. 10 November 2021. Retrieved 19 December 2023.

Sources

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