SciArt meets life

A unique online exhibition explored the phenomenon of the transmission of diseases, behaviours and emotions to make sense of our uncertain times, writes Papiya Bhattacharya

Putting the Ants in Antibiotics. Ant fungus garden. Photo courtesy John Innes Centre

Penning Fleming's Discovery

British artists’ group Blast Theory’s 2021 work ‘A Cluster of 17 Cases’ explores the outbreak of SARS in 2003 Photo courtesy: Blast Theory.

When the world was a laugh. View from the studio, work in progress. Courtesy Anaïs Tondeur

There could possibly have not been a better name for an exhibit like this: Contagion. Take The Bombay plague by artist Ranjit Kandalgaonkar. In 1896, there was an epidemic of Bubonic Plague that spread from China to India through naval routes and caused thousands to flee and /or die.

The exhibit is an interactive drawing with several markers that give tidbits about little incidents that give us an insight into people’s behaviour during a pandemic.

One little marker talks about doctors fleeing and avoiding looking at patients for fear of the disease while another highlights a cartoon from Punch where people discuss escaping from the plague in an air balloon into mad air. Think it’s relevant in our times?

There’s another link to an interactive artwork, A cluster of 17 cases by the Blast Theory group of artists. The artwork is a video in ominous tints of greys, deep blue and black which takes us into the Metropole Hotel in Hong Kong which became a unique spot to spread the SARS epidemic through a doctor. The artwork takes us to different hotel rooms with different scenarios being played in the hotel, complete with narrations.

Both the exhibits give us an artists’ perspective about pandemics. Matt Adams, an artist with Blast Theory said, “In 2018 Blast Theory were Artists in Residence at the World Health Organisation headquarters in Geneva over a three-month period. This was created by Wellcome as part of their Contagious Cities programme. We were embedded in the Strategic Health Operations Centre that monitors incoming reports of infectious diseases and holds a meeting every 24 hours to respond. We were also able to interview the staff members at the WHO to gain an understanding of their work.

And we spent a lot of time in the library and the archive of the WHO. This process was fascinating and gave us an insight into the skills and practices of those fighting infectious disease. We were interested to explore the psychology of those people: to understand how they dealt with the life or death nature of their work.”

Contagion was an exhibition by the Bengaluru Science Gallery put up completely online in the context of the present pandemic. SciArt is fairly new in India and the Science Gallery, Bengaluru is the first of its kind. Jahnavi Phalkey, Founding Director of the Science Gallery Bengaluru says, “Contagion presents a multiplicity of voices to better understand our collective experience of the Covid-19 pandemic. Knowledge about the unfolding situation is being revised rapidly for more than twelve months. After all, how do ideas, behaviours and diseases spread and to what consequences? We open doors to research, to creative responses, and hands-on activities that will help us all formulate relevant questions as we make our way through this demanding moment.”

There’s another exhibit by a group of scientists on Putting the Ants in Antibiotics that have pictures, videos and information about how the microbiome that ants live in can be harvested for use in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

The exhibition features 16 interactive exhibits and more than 40 live programmes such as a public lecture series with tutorials, film screenings and discussions, masterclasses, workshops, events, and a live research project. The latter provided a deeper look into the science of pandemics. Contagion is a unique effort at bringing scientists and artists closer to understand a pandemic and the dynamics of associated human beings.

One of the earlier lectures was by Dr Sylvie Brand from WHO, who spoke on the pandemic leading to an Infodemic in the form of too much false and true information. There are talks on various viruses, modelling an epidemic, events that take people on a tour of Dr Edward Jenner’s home from where he began the journey of developing a vaccine for smallpox, which has been eradicated now.

Shahid Jameel, Director, Trivedi School of Biosciences, Ashoka University and academic advisor of the exhibition says of the SciArt exhibition, “Joshua Lederberg has said that, “The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on the planet is the virus.” In this battle, never forget that evolution sides with the contagion.” The exhibition (https://nowtransmitting/exhibits) was completely online and free for all and available in English and Kannada. Over 45 days, Contagion explored the infectious nature of not only diseases but also emotions, behaviours and information. The exhibition was developed in partnership with the Robert Koch Institute, the German National Public Health Institute. DBT-Wellcome Trust India Alliance, the Indian National Science Academy, The Jenner Trust, US Consulate General, Chennai, and Chennai Photo Biennale Foundation and the John Innes Centre at Norwich, UK.