Beginnings in science and art often involve imagination, discretion, and dialogue. NEST Studio for the Arts begins here by recognizing the vibrant, interdisciplinary successes of our times, showcasing the intersections, disruptions, and insights that are made possible when scientific research and artistic practice meaningfully engage.
NEST's inaugural exhibition, EMBRYONIC presents preexisting, far-flung work, while also bringing local collaborators together anew: a chemist and a ceramicist; a wood sculptor and an ecologist; a hydrologist and a filmmaker. The resulting art can be viewed empirically, contemplatively, immanently, or with a sense of urgency for a world beset with endocrine disruptors, rising sea levels, and rampant resource competition. Above all, the work here is germinal, full of potential, testing our thresholds for declaring fertile conclusions, intermediaries, and, of course, inventive beginnings.
EMBRYONIC is on view from September 21 to December 21 inside the west wing of the new CASE Building at CU Boulder.
Participating artists and contributors include: BioFrontiers (courtesy of J. Dragavon); Fiske Planetarium (courtesy of J. Keller); James Balog (Earth Vision Institute); Alice F. Hill & Toma Peiu; Aaron Treher & Molly McDermott; Catherine Cartwright; Bob Sievers; Aaron Lamplugh & Camila Friedman-Gerlicz; Mehmet Berkmen & Maria Peñil Cobo; NIST (courtesy of R. Simmonds); Maya Livio; Julie Maren; Kerry Koepping (Arctic Arts/CIRES); CU Museum of Natural History (courtesy of K. Regan); Mary Edna Fraser; Kia Neill; Dakota Nanton; and Laurids Andersen Sonne.
Pictured above: The Makings of Us by Dakota Nanton; The desire for, and the impossibility of, infinite expansion by Catherine Cartwright; and Outbreak by Julie Maren.