- Name of organization
ART±BIO Collaborative (U.S.)
- Email address (or preferred and reliable way of official contact)
artbio@artbiocollaborative.com; sdowdynava@artbiocollaborative.com
- Tell us about your organization
We are the ART±BIO Collaborative (www.artbiocollaborative.org; @ArtBioCollab), an artist- and scientist-led organization that fosters the integration of Science, Nature, and Art through novel collaborations, public engagement, education, and research. Our work utilizes the intersection of the Arts, Biology, Natural History and the Life Sciences as a catalyst for social dialogue and creative exchange of ideas with artists, scientists, and diverse publics.
We are committed to broadening participation, accessibility, and equity in the Arts and Sciences and their intersections. To that end, we create cross-disciplinary, inclusive, and collaborative opportunities for the leadership and participation of underserved, historically excluded/underrepresented, and marginalized communities and populations.
- Does your organization have representation for a marginalized demographic due to factors such as, but not limited to, race, ability, place of birth, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class situation or other identification? If so, how?
Yes. The ART±BIO Collaborative’s mission and activities are centered around supporting, engaging and creating opportunities for historically excluded and underrepresented communities. We work hard to create meaningful, cross-disciplinary, accessible, and collaborative opportunities (education) for the inclusion and participation of under-served, historically underrepresented, and marginalized communities and populations. As founders of an organization focused on embracing and promoting Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion in the arts and sciences and who are ourselves members of marginalized populations, we directly address issues of diversity and equity both in our professional and personal lives.
In addition to focusing on marginalized and historically underserved and excluded populations in our outreach initiatives and educational programs, ART±BIO Collaborative founded the Desert Outreach Summit and has created the Cultivo Field Residency and Cultivo Field Mentorship, to reduce barriers and create vital opportunities for Artists and Scientists of Color to create, collaborate, lead, learn, mentor, support, and flourish—making the Arts, Sciences, and their intersections more equitable, inclusive, and diverse ecosystems.
- What is the event about, and what do you want to achieve with it?
The Sun City Art+Science Festival, founded by the ART+BIO Collaborative with support by the Science Festival Alliance, is the first-ever science festival for the city of El Paso, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico Border. The festival will launch in Spring 2022 with Science Murals, public art by local artists about the biology and natural history of the Chihuahuan Desert. Additionally the event will include 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 for participatory, supplemental science learning and artmaking.
We have received modest funding for the Sun City Art+Science Festival and are seeking additional funding from GOSH to allow us to expand our ongoing open access and inclusive efforts to sharpen the focus and impact of our event through the inclusion of Art+Bio kits, a Cultivo Mentor, and focused public access and documentation that share the GOSH ethos and democratize science in ways that would simply not be possible without additional funding.
We are collaborating with the BioMedia Lab of MassArt for this event via the Art+Bio Methods Project (ArtBioMethods-Exhibition). A primary goal of the SunCity Art+Science Festival is to empower and engage the border community to explore nature and biological inquiry via public art and science outreach. Because this is a bilingual, transnational region, we seek to promote science education through the most accessible language we can provide: Visual Art.
El Paso, TX is located within the beautiful and mountainous Chihuahuan Desert which boasts the greatest biodiversity of any desert in the world. Despite the rich and abundant ecological resources, the greater El Paso community is disproportionately and historically disadvantaged economically. By hosting the Sun City Art+Science Festival in a predominantly Latinx, Chicano, immigrant community, we are committing to broadening participation via open-access and inclusion as the foundational premise and core strength of our festival. This event will be particularly impactful to the borderland community which is in the national political spotlight, divided by a literal wall, lacking in funding and opportunities, strongly supportive of educational opportunities in the arts and sciences, and most importantly, yearning for free and accessible science engagement.
- Which of the three levels of funding would you like to apply for? (in round 1 only USD $9910 is available for applications, in further rounds $3000, $6000, or USD $9910 will be available)
Round 1: $9910
- What is the funding for? Describe your budget. List what you are going to spend it on and how.
Funding from GOSH’s 2022 Regional Events Funding will largely support the Sun City Art+Science Festival and in particular the creation of DIY Art+Bio Kits to be widely distributed to K-12 classrooms and event attendees. Kits will contain instructables and supplies for artmaking + 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. The Art+Bio Kits will be put together with a focus on integrative art and science education, with activities centered on inquiry about the ecology and biodiversity of the Chihuahuan Desert. Funding will also support a Cultivo Mentorship position to provide a paid leadership role and learning experience for an Artist or Scientist of Color, as well as provide funding for artist fees, instructor fees, and honoraria to regional artists and scientists.
BUDGET
$1000 - Cultivo Mentorship funding for BIPoC Art/Science Graduate Intern
$3,000 - Artist Fees for mural design + creation
$1,200 - Instructor Fees + Honoraria to Scientists for artmaking instruction & science communication
$3,700 - DIY Art+Bio Kits: 100+ kits with instructables, hardware and supplies for diy artmaking + science exploration (i.e. Foldscopes/ diy microscopes, Neo Lucidas/ diy camera lucidas, field sketchbooks, magnifiers, drawing supplies, etc.)
$1,010 - Documentation + Publication Fees
TOTAL: $9,910 USD
- How will you share the outcomes of this event. What documentation will result that will this project benefit the community as a whole? (videos? photos? a how-to? innovative hardware designs?)
We will collect art, photos, video, and written documentation of the Sun City Art+Science Festival and activities including mural making and unveilings, school visits and public engagement events. All documentation of the festival activities and other diy processes and open hardware will be posted on the festival website with instructables and/or lesson plans when appropriate and shared widely with the public on social media and through strategic media partners, as well as with key stakeholders, including with information in Spanish. All DIY Art+Bio Kit instructions and activities will be made available via the festival website and social media. Murals themselves, as fully accessible public art, remain in the community permanently and have an indefinite and immeasurable public impact. A virtual art exhibition will be created to celebrate and share all artwork by K-12 students created from the DIY Art+Bio Kit explorations, in addition to a published exhibition book which will be distributed to educators and community members for free. Through a collaboration with the BioMedia Lab of MassArt, all creative outputs from our events and outreach efforts will also be documented and shared via the Art+Bio Methods project, wherein artists adapt the scientific method to explore, create, document, and share their methods of creating art inspired by biology and natural history online.
- How would your event address GOSH’s values of diversity and inclusion?
We believe that artistic and scientific literacy, and access to natural resources and the discoveries, advancements, and creations of the arts and sciences, are universal human rights and will be central to our festival. We are certain our efforts allign with GOSH’s Mission to make open science hardware open to everybody, regardless of scholarly or professional background, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, ability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, economic background, country of origin or employment, religion, and other differences.
The greater El Paso community seemingly has access to educational resources and the potential for economic growth. Instead, structural racism presents a real barrier. It is building a literal wall that blocks ecological flow and threatens desert species and blocks economic flow and immigration between the U.S. and Mexico. It keeps academics, researchers, experts, higher education, University resources and SCIENCE inaccessible, intimidating, or simply out of reach for those El Pasoans most in need. Broadening participation in science via an open access Art+Science Festival in this region allows the public to celebrate science and to participate and lead in the process of scientific inquiry and not simply access (if at all) the findings of science. In this way, our event and the out-of-school science learning, diy explorations, and public artmaking it provides become mechanisms for social justice for a critical and marginalized population and are well in line with GOSH’s values of diversity and inclusion.
- Are there any conflicts of interest that you wish to declare?
No