Curiosity and the Creative Process: The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discoveries of Women
APS Museum - Philosophical Hall
104 South Fifth Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Curiosity and the Creative Process: The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discoveries of Women
Rebecca Kamen
Artist in Residence, The Department of Physics and Astronomy, UPENN
Thursday, May 4 from 6:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
Artists and scientists are storytellers. Weaving observations and insights into narratives of discovery, their work reveals the secrets of nature.
Art and science share much in common. Both fields engage in creative problem solving, discover truths related to the notions of beauty, and utilize visualization to make the invisible visible. Before the advent of the camera, scientists adopted drawing and painting as methods for capturing and recording observations about scientific phenomena.
Like a scientist, Rebecca Kamen seeks truth through observation. Her artwork is informed by curiosity, wide-ranging research into cosmology, history, philosophy, and the search for common threads that flow across various scientific fields to capture and reimagine what scientists see.
This powerpoint presentation will discuss how curiosity and the creative process have served as catalysts to explore and interpret the scientific discoveries of women scientists in the APS collections, and the power of art to provide a visual voice for their scientific discoveries.
The presentation will conclude by briefly discussing a new international study on the “Aesthetics of Science” and its findings regarding women scientists.
The exhibition Pursuit & Persistence: 300 Years of Women in Science will be open before and after the program.
About Rebecca Kamen
Rebecca Kamen has investigated scientific rare books and manuscripts at the libraries of the American Philosophical Society, the Science History Institute, Linda Hall Library, and the Cajal Institute in Madrid, utilizing these significant scientific collections as a catalyst in the creation of her work.
She has researched on collaborative projects at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University, the Kavli Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rochester Institute of Technology, and at the National Institutes of Health. Selected as a Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow in 2015, she was invited to Austria to present her work as part of a seminar titled: The Neuroscience of Art: What are the Sources of Creativity and Innovation.
Ms. Kamen has exhibited and lectured both nationally and internationally including China, Hong Kong, Korea, Austria, Chile, Egypt, Spain, Australia and Singapore. She has been the recipient of a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship, a Pollack Krasner Foundation Fellowship, two Strauss Fellowships, and a Travel Grant from the former Chemical Heritage Foundation. As artist in residence in the neuroscience program at National Institutes of Health, Kamen has interpreted and transformed neuroscience research into sculptural form. Her artwork is represented in many private and public collections.
As professor emeritus of art at Northern Virginia Community College, Professor Kamen continues to investigate how the arts and creativity can enhance innovation and our understanding of science.
Currently, Professor Kamen is serving as visiting scholar / artist in residence in The Computational Neuroscience Initiative and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania.