ART+BIO Collaborative: Sun City Art+Science Festival
ART±BIO Collaborative
AWARD AMOUNT
ART±BIO Collaborative (@ArtBioCollab 2), is an artist- and scientist-led organization that fosters the integration of Science, Nature, and Art through novel collaborations, public engagement, education, and research. The Sun City Art+Science Festival is the first-ever science festival for the city of El Paso, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico Border. The festival launched in Spring of 2022 with Science Murals, and public art by local artists about the biology and natural history of the Chihuahuan Desert. Additionally, the event targeted educational outreach with area K-12 schools and hi-impact public engagement events within the community, highlighted by the distribution of free DIY Art+Bio Kits by ART±BIO Collaborative, for participatory, supplemental science learning and art making.
A primary goal of the SunCity Art+Science Festival is to empower and engage the border community in a predominantly Latinx, Chicano, immigrant community, using the accessible language of visual public art, to explore nature and biological inquiry. Open access and inclusion was the foundational premise and core strength of the festival. Funding supported the creation of DIY Art+Bio Kits to be widely distributed to K-12 classrooms and event attendees. Kits contained supplies for art making and DIY science and biological exploration, including Foldscopes and other DIY microscope-making materials, Neo Lucidas and other DIY camera lucida-making materials, field sketchbooks, magnifiers, 2D drawing materials and other supplies. Funding also supported a Cultivo Mentorship position for an Artist or Scientist of Color, as well as providing honoraria to regional artists and scientists.
Led by a small core team of Artists, Scientists, and Art+Design/Biology students led by Dr. Saúl Nava and Stephanie Dowdy-Nava, participants camped and conducted habitat studies integrating art and nature at various field sites in the region, learned about the ecology of the Chihuahuan Desert, designed and installed a Science Mural, and developed art+science public engagement activities that were presented at the Mural Celebration Event. Activities consisted of guided hikes and collaborative drawing of desert flora and fauna, raptor identification and illustration, owl-pellet dissections and observational drawing.
Another goal was to integrate the work with youth in the community. Over a series of months, the team worked to establish relationships with educators who participated in their drawing sessions, and become recipients of DIY Art+Bio Kits for participatory, supplemental science learning and artmaking. The team also coordinated with regional Independent School District administrators and educators in the greater El Paso area to bring these drawing sessions to Art and Biology classrooms ranging from elementary grades to high school.
In the future, new Science Murals focused on desert ecology will be completed year-round and celebrated annually during Sun City Art+Science Festivals, with additional public outreach and programming supplementing the public art. The focus of the organisers as the festival grows is to prioritize intimate, high-impact outreach with El Pasoans that brings pop-up Art+Science opportunities to unexpected pockets of the city in the form of permanent Science Murals, school partnerships, and novel public engagement events in unconventional places and in meaningful ways.
Reference Number: GOSH RF-205