Research as Art

Research as Art is fundamentally an art gallery exhibit where all of the pieces are figures or images from active research.  The captions include a (not so technical!) description of the scientific relevance of the image in order to place the art in its scientific context.  This event aims to present current, cutting-edge Earth Science research in an accessible and exciting way to the general public (or to your broader department or institution).  In the case at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the event was designed to alert people to the interesting research going on across the institution from areas as diverse as seismology and marine biology.

To arrange a Research as Art event, we sent out a broad request for submissions to members of our institution.  We purchased framing supplies and printed submissions using a poster plotter.  We also printed the Title, Author, and "Abstract" or caption and mounted that on black paper to be hung adjacent to the framed images.  We chose to host the event during the department's weekly social hour and provided refreshments for people to enjoy while perusing the art.

This event would be equally successful in a less scientific community.  The one thing that we'd suggest, however, is to be explicit in the instructions for the captions.  People are sometimes tempted to submit a caption from a figure that they had in a paper as is.  However, these types of captions tend to be too technical for a lay audience and (in our case) even a scientific audience without the context of the whole paper.  Perhaps this could be avoided by requesting a non-technical caption and setting a word limit.

Research as Art Event Budget
Beverages	$101
Snacks	$20
Frames	$166
Framing supplies (glue, backing, etc)	$30
Total	$317