{"id":80239,"date":"2025-11-13T08:14:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T13:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/?p=80239"},"modified":"2025-11-14T14:03:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T19:03:06","slug":"bridging-the-art-and-science-divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/psi\/news\/bridging-the-art-and-science-divide\/","title":{"rendered":"Bridging the Art-and-Science Divide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

While popular opinion tends to place art and science at opposing poles, artist Leah Sobsey<\/a> is more inclined to focus on the ground they share in helping us understand our world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A reception last week at North Carolina State University\u2019<\/a>s Plant Sciences Building brought artists, scientists and their supporters together to celebrate art that Sobsey created as part of a partnership between the N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative<\/a> and the Gregg Museum of Art & Design.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reception was just one aspect of a semester-long, plant-focused interdisciplinary partnership<\/a> between the N.C. PSI and the Gregg Museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sobsey is a curator and associate professor of photography at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and as artist-in-residence with the N.C. PSI, she shadowed three graduate students this semester and developed works of art reflecting their plant sciences research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is about noticing, it\u2019s about caring, and it\u2019s about creating, hopefully with empathy for our planet and for each other.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Each of the pieces unveiled at the reception is, as she put it, \u201can attempt to uncover some meaning \u2014 some unknown meaning \u2014 similar to how each of these researchers is working in the lab to uncover meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quoting writer Maria Popova, Sobsey noted, \u201c\u2018The aim of science is to eliminate the mysteries of nature. The aim of art is to give us a language for living with that mystery. Creativity in both is a style of noticing, of attending to the world more closely in order to love it more deeply.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor me, really this is about noticing, it\u2019s about caring, and it\u2019s about creating, hopefully with empathy for our planet and for each other,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hannah Pil and \u2018Somos Maiz\/We Are Maize\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Sobsey\u2019s interpretation of Hannah Pil\u2019s maize genetics research is captured in an accordion-style book that melds text with cyanotype prints of corn tassels and roots. The work also incorporates the poem \u201cSomos Maiz,\u201d Spanish for \u201cWe Are Maize,\u201d by artist, writer and educator Ana Mar\u00eda G\u00f3mez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pil, a Ph.D. student working with N.C. PSI faculty affiliate Rub\u00e9n Rell\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez of the Department of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry<\/a>, studies genes in teosinte, corn\u2019s ancestor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corn is one of the world’s top crops, serving as a leading source of food, animal feed and bioenergy, but climate change and invasive pests pose significant threats. Pil\u2019s goal is to provide plant breeders with a larger genetic arsenal for developing new varieties that are more resilient in the face of extreme weather conditions and other emerging threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her quest to find answers to modern problems in teosinte\u2019s ancient genetics are reflected in the themes of survival, culture and connection across time that Sobsey explores in the accordion book. As the exhibit label notes, the work invites viewers \u201cto consider how living things, like the book itself, unfold through time, always bending toward light.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adarsha Devihalli and \u2018The Fir-Tree\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Devihalli, a Ph.D. student in forestry and genetics student, hopes his research will contribute to instilling resilience in both the state\u2019s commercial Christmas tree industry and in endangered wild populations of Fraser fir.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sobsey\u2019s take on Adarsha Devihalli\u2019s research related to Fraser firs delves into similar themes \u2014 resilience, memory and connection \u2014 but takes a much larger form. \u2018The Fir-Tree\u2019 is a larger-than-life, brilliant blue photo montage on bright white fabric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she does with \u2018Somos Maiz\/We Are Maize,\u2019 Sobsey incorporates poetry into \u2018The Fir-Tree,\u2019 adding depth and meaning from 19th-century writer Josephine Preston Peabody\u2019s reflections on the resilience of nature and the human spirit amid adversity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devihalli hopes his doctoral research will lead to solutions that help instill resilience in both the state\u2019s commercial Christmas tree industry and in ecologically important endangered wild populations of Fraser fir found on high-elevation peaks in the southern Appalachian Mountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope this art piece sparks conversation about native trees in North Carolina and across the U.S. and the effort that NC State is doing to protect them.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Studying with N.C. PSI faculty affiliate Justin Whitehill, of NC State\u2019s Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources<\/a>, Devihalli is comparing the molecular-level interactions that take place when Fraser firs are infected by Phytophthora cinnamomic<\/em> with those that occur when the pathogen infects two disease-resistant exotic fir trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope this art piece sparks conversation about native trees in North Carolina and across the U.S. and the effort that NC State is doing to protect them, because that’s the goal,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to have a rich biodiversity by using modern science.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M<\/strong>ohammadreza Zare and \u2018Galn\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\u2018Galn\u2019 draws connections between materials and processes used in photography and those Zare uses to create plant sensors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While Sobsey\u2019s interpretations of Devihalli\u2019s and Pil\u2019s research play out in blue tones on soft surfaces of paper and fabric, her piece on Mohammadreza Zare\u2019s research relies on harder materials \u2014 glass and metal \u2014 and a dramatic grayscale palette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Galn\u2019 is a collection of photographic prints on glass and metal. The work draws connections between materials and processes used in photography and those used in the plant sensor technology Zare is working on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Light, metal and chemistry converge in these abstract black-and-white prints that reference landscape, the body and the solar system, inviting reflection on process, materiality, data and transformation.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Working with Michael Dickey and Qingshan Wei in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering<\/a>, Zare uses a gallium-based alloy that overcomes some of the limits of using other materials in plant sensors. Unlike harder, opaque metals like gold and silver, the ultrathin liquid metal is transparent, allowing light needed for plant growth to pass through. It\u2019s also flexible enough to bend as leaves do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plant sensors that Zare is helping develop sit on leaves and provide continuous data that can signal problems before plants show visible symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, film photography can reveal hidden phenomena, with an interplay of light, chemistry and metals revealing latent images. Sobsey uses a gallium-based material provided by Zare to create \u2018Galn.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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N.C. PSI Executive Director Adrian Percy snaps a photo of Leah Sobsey and Mohammedreza Zare during the reception.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As the exhibit label explains, the piece \u201cexplores the material and alchemical foundations of photography through process. Light, metal and chemistry converge in these abstract black-and-white prints that reference landscape, the body and the solar system, inviting reflection on process, materiality, data and transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art to spark creativity and problem-solving innovation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For Sobsey, working with Zare, Devihalli and Pil was an extension of work she\u2019s done at the intersection of art and science for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI still find it thrilling \u2013 always a little intimidating — to be working with scientists, but I feel that we have a lot to learn from each other,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having witnessed the boundary-crossing learning come out of the artist\u2019s residency and related art-and-science activities this fall, N.C. PSI Executive Director Adrian Percy believes similar collaborations could spark creativity and problem-solving innovation in and beyond the plant sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have over 100 faculty that are part of our program coming from nine different colleges across campus. \u2026  We literally have rocket scientists and nuclear engineers who are working on agricultural challenges across the state, and that’s very, very powerful,\u201d he said. \u201cBut what we\u2019ve lacked is the arts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope this experiment, if we can call it that, is one of a long line of things that \u2026 we do together with our partners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n