UMass Magazine Online

Winter 2005

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Art Under Glass
Nikon’s “Small World” exhibit reveals big, beautiful science

–Linda Cahillane




	photo by Dr. Tsutomo Seimiya

AT FIRST GLANCE, THE PHOTOS look like contemporary abstract images. Then you read the titles: “live three-dimensional image of a cluster of blood vessels from a rat”; “aqueous solution of soap film in rectangular glass frame”. Is this art—or is this science?

That’s the question that begs exploration this February at the Herter Gallery, host to “Small World,” a photography exhibit sponsored by Nikon. The annual show will celebrate its 30th anniversary with the exhibit at Herter. It features 20 award-winning images taken through a microscope, each a striking marriage of art and science.

More than a dozen microscopic images photographed by UMass Amherst polymer science graduate students during their work in materials science will be exhibited concurrently with the show, including “Frazzled,” by artist/scientist Ting Xu. Xu says the work was not produced on purpose; it was the result of a failed experiment. “When I first saw it under the microscope, there was a little bit of disappointment,” says Xu. “However, the beauty and uniqueness really captured my eye.”

Colorful and fluid, her image is not easily distinguishable from deliberately produced art. “I have always believed in a strong bond between art, music and science,” says Xu. “They are just different ways of looking at the world.”

The exhibits, along with a symposium on reconnecting art and science, are just the beginning, says Linda Strzegowski. She is program director for Ventures in Science Using Art Laboratory, an educational/outreach effort of the NSF-supported Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. Strzegowski is working toward a long-term collaboration between the disciplines. “Although our interaction is in its embryonic stage, we have strong support from the colleges of Arts and Humanities and Natural Science and Mathematics, as well as the vice provost for research, Paul Kostecki,” she says. “I know our interdisciplinary activities will continue to grow.”
http://www.nsm.umass.edu/ http://www.umass.edu/hfa/ http://www.umass.edu/art/exhibitions/herter-schedule.html

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