A duo interview with Karine Van Doninck and Katrien Kolenberg
Karine Van Doninck
Van Doninck is professor of evolutionary biology at ULB and UNamur. She studies adaptations to extreme environments in animals and other organisms. Karine also teaches in the bachelor and master programmes and has had a passion for art since she was young. As part of several Urban Artistic projects she engages in with her partner, she runs a Bed & Breakfast in the center of Brussels.
Katrien Kolenberg
Katrien is professor of astrophysics at UAntwerp and VUB, and professor of science communication at KU Leuven. From a young age she was already very much into art but also fascinated by the cosmos and she tries to bring these two parallel tracks closer together in her professional career. She coordinates national programs to teach Science Technology Engineering (Arts) Mathematics in a space context. Katrien creates art, plays the cello, and sometimes uses this to explain the sounds of the stars.
We are very grateful to Karine and Katrien for making time during this very busy period in the academic year to talk to us about how they connect science and art. It became an inspiring conversation about teaching, research, relationships, and funding, but most of all about new perspectives and out-of-the-box thinking.
Katrien, can you tell us how you started to bring science and art together?
Kolenberg \ “As a very young person I was already very much into art but also fascinated by the cosmos, so I decided to study physics and become an astrophysicist. But during my PhD studies, sometimes I would just flee into the arts.”
“But I kept them very separate, it’s only after my PhD that I started to experiment with bringing them together. I realized that when I combined them in communicating about my research or about the field of astrophysics in general, that it would really lower the threshold for many people.”
Which audience were you trying to reach?
Kolenberg \ “As wide as possible. I went into science communication because especially with a field like astrophysics, I’m doing research on stars that are hundreds of light years away, that are really very far out for most people. I wanted to feel more useful in a shorter term as well.”
“I found it very fulfilling and also something that could bring people together because they would be talking about something ‘outside’, or above them, literally.”
“Science goes in through our heads, at least that’s our perception, but art touches us on another level, it goes through our belly or our heart. It’s not something that we approach in a very rational way. And that opens doors.”
Karine, can you tell us more about how art and science have opened doors in your life?
Van Doninck \ “Since I was young I went often to art exhibitions with my godmother and loved art while also having many artist friends, so I think it started through a network. I had a network that included mainly artists. When we renovated this old big building with my partner engineer architect, we invited a lot of artists to have their ateliers there. Their creations were unique and inspiring, which triggered me to invite some artists who were interested in art and science to my research laboratory.”
“The interaction between the artists and the scientists was so interesting, and the work the artists created around our research was so fascinating, that in the end I decided to organize an exhibition. Caroline Pauwels, former rector of the VUB, offered us the whole exhibition space of PILAR for almost 8 weeks. We invited secondary schools, primary schools, the whole student community of ULB/VUB, the Brussels people.”
“We reached a lot of people, much more than we reached through scientific papers that we published, which are often too specialized and incomprehensive for the general public. As it’s maybe less difficult to walk into an exhibition, it’s really nice that through the artwork, people understand a few aspects of our science.”
“I also reached audiences through a project that was created by Koen Vanmechelen, the artist behind Labiomista in Genk. Koen and Caroline Pauwels contacted me to work together on The Unthinkable Experiment, which brings together students from very different disciplines to think about the future. It’s all about transdisciplinarity, where you have scientists and artists together around the table. The students learn to think and discuss about important topics with people from many different disciplines.”
“And then of course from SEADS I knew Angelo Vermeulen. He’s one of the founders and he’s very much into transdisciplinarity. And since I was interested in this transdisciplinarity within my lab, I talked to him about my whole arts and science thinking in my lab and communication. That’s how my collaboration with SEADS started.”
You actually know each other through SEADS, what is it?
Kolenberg \ “SEADS stands for Space, Ecology, Arts, and Design, and is a collective of artists and scientists, people with usually some multi- or interdisciplinary profile who work together. It’s organic how things grow within SEADS, and that’s what attracted me very much to this collective.”
“Years ago, they did a project called Seeker, in which they brought together people of various backgrounds and disciplines to think about a space habitat. The event took place in Leuven and they set up a performance around it. It was fascinating to see this grow. I joined the collective and I’ve been lucky to interact with these super interesting people who see art also as a way to think deeper and communicate about science and vice versa. But it’s much more than that, and that’s how I was lucky to meet Karine as well.”
Van Doninck \ “As Katrien says, it’s really a beautiful example of what a group of transdisciplinary people can create. There are engineers, scientists, and artists. It’s a very diverse community and it works very organically.”
“They decided to send artwork with our experiments into space. The artwork evolved with the scientific data and the scientific results from space were in the end represented through 3D-printed sculptures, but also videos and big graphics. It was a very original and attractive way to present real scientific data through this interaction.”
“I try to communicate the science through my teaching, through this interaction with artists and through different media than just scientific papers.”
You mention education, you both use art to teach science, Karine can you give an example?
Van Doninck \ “I was teaching in Africa, and I realized some people had zero know-how of evolution and it was very difficult to teach evolution there as for them this concept of God creating humans was very important.”
“What’s very difficult for people to understand about evolution, is that random changes can create such beautiful, complex adaptations like our brain, like our eyes. I realize it’s very hard for them to have God on one side, to have this randomness on the other side and to have this complex adaptation.”
“I created a science card game with an artist, and through playing it they forget everything about religion. They learn the process of randomness, because they realize by playing cards, and having one card coming up, that’s random. Through the beautiful visualization of the artist, they concentrate on the randomness of the game and on the visualization.”
“Through the visualization, you slowly see the complexity building up, but cumulative. And evolution is all about “cumulative”. When something is well adapted, it’s selected for. And by playing they really feel this concept of randomness, of cumulative effects, and of selection, and these are the three concepts they need to retain.”
“By bringing science through a different method with an artist, as we designed a game that is beautiful, that is touching, that is playful, they certainly understand the concept much better. And through questions they needed to answer afterwards, we saw they totally forgot about too many aspects that complicate the story, such as their religion.”
Kolenberg \ “Karine already gave a fantastic example of these alternative ways of bringing scientific concepts to students, and how art can help with this. It’s not only about preaching to the choir, not only for the people who are naturally inclined to be open to this.”
Katrien, can you share some of your experiences?
Kolenberg \ “I’ll give an example of an experiment I did a few years ago which involved artists and scientists. From my own experience, I had noticed that if I would take a more artistic approach to communicating science that it would open doors, it would open minds, as you take away some of the filters that are otherwise there.”
“I was involved with the Art Academy of Leuven and I spoke with the leader of a transdisciplinary atelier. We thought it would be nice to do an experiment of just bringing artists and scientists together. We got support from the city of Leuven and KU Leuven, and we opened a call for scientists and artists. About 40 artists and 40 scientists signed up. During a speed dating event they were brought in touch with each other, and we chose one overarching theme, which was “chaos”, a concept that’s very widely used and has some connotations in science, but also in art.”
“And then people would just meet. Organically, themes were formed. Usually with one scientist and one artist, and they would exchange, and the goal was to create artwork out of this collaboration within one academic year.”
“It was really interesting to witness that some of the scientists who signed up had the idea, and it’s always a danger, that the artists would help them to illustrate their science, and that it would result in, for example, a nice figure as an alternative way to communicate their science. But it usually doesn’t work like that, it’s much more than that. You would see the art, and be touched by it, and then also hear from the artist or the scientist about the science, because we did this exhibition where artists and scientists would be present, and it would be like, oh wow, you could see that the sum was more than each of the parts.”
“I think that’s where the strength lies in this kind of collaboration, because you are—as a scientist and as an artist—forced to speak in a language that is, and that’s science communication, understandable to the other person who wears other glasses and has other talents and skills. And for me, our science collaborations are much more than science communication. It’s about getting a completely new view on your field and that helps to communicate it better because every field seems to be in a niche. But it’s never like that. Science is always connected with so many other things and art can help to clarify that, not only to the public but also to the scientists themselves. And that’s what I found particularly interesting of the experience I mentioned, that the scientists would get new insights, new discoveries, thanks to the way the artists were approaching the problem.”
Karine, you invited artists into your lab to work with your scientists. How did you experience that, any challenges?
Van Doninck \ “Challenges of course, but not more than amongst scientists, luckily. I think it’s just that every person is different. It’s part of working with people and it’s the diversity, which I think is fascinating.”
“The collaboration was great and I can’t say that there were difficulties. On the contrary. We have weekly lab meetings in my lab, where we discuss scientific results which go very deep in detail. All my scientists are there, and some artists would sometimes join as well and it would be really interesting how they suddenly asked the questions very differently.”
“For example, I remember one about the validity of our scientific data. We would think we have evidence, and we use these words like “we have shown this”, “we have proven this”. Proven, I would never use anymore, because the artist reflected on the fact that our questions, and the way we answer them, are somehow always a bit biased. Because the technology we use to answer our questions is already technology that we developed to answer those questions. Even if we think we’ve proven something, there’s still a bias, and that has led to very interesting philosophical discussions about the validity of scientific data.”
“Artists also got impressed, for example, by the resilience of scientists and the difficulty of obtaining good scientific data. By following the scientists in my lab, and seeing how many times an experiment could fail before we get to something, impressed the artist. But artists also have long thinking processes. The final result may never be final. There is a lot of serendipity, also in science. We have made our most beautiful discoveries by chance.”
“Both artists and scientists realized they have a lot in common. The constant thinking process, the failure. Often failure in finding money, in discovering, or in answering our questions. Failure of the experiments we were doing, and then the resilience, and the passion to continue, and the openness to serendipity and out-of-the-box thinking. We found a lot in common when we worked together, and I think the scientists in my team have started to appreciate and incorporate the artistic input and remarks as part of our thinking process.”
So how did they handle challenges like jargon and scientific nuance?
Van Doninck \ “Yes, that’s something my scientists had to learn to deal with. And that was the good thing, to have the artist around, because the artist would ask: what are you doing today or what is it? In the beginning, artists would say: ‘I don’t understand anything of what you’re saying’. That was a great exercise for the scientists in my team, because suddenly they had to get out of that scientific jargon and really think: oh how, can I now explain this in a different way?”
“One time, a researcher was doing a very complicated experiment. One photographer got focused on it, and she followed him, and followed him, and their interaction became very beautiful. Somehow, at some point, they co-evolved the experiment. She, the photographer, would suggest some ways to try to improve things, and they were working together on that experiment which was never the idea from the beginning. I think it’s been really, really positive.”
“At the moment we don’t have artists around and it’s a missing part in my lab. Transdisciplinarity is something I will continuously stimulate.”
Kolenberg \ “I love how you describe the co-evolution in what’s happening in your lab.”
Karine, you found the interactions between your scientists and artist so fascinating that you decided to make an exhibition. How did you manage the funding?
Van Doninck \ “By looking around I found a lot of financial support for our exhibition. We got a huge budget from Innoviris, who are very open to initiatives that stimulate exposing a broader audience and especially the young ones to science.”
“In fact, if you start to look around, there are several ways to find money, like the National Lottery, because they want to not only be a gaming company, but also really show that they want to do initiatives aimed at young people. We also got sponsoring from some private companies and mecenas. With SEADS, we got a budget from Vlaanderen Cultuur to work together, and the FNRS has the Wernaers Fund.”
“As a scientist, I’m used to looking around for money for our science projects. What’s very important for me is that each artist that worked in interaction with my scientists, and I would exhibit, that they had a budget. None of them would have to do it for free, even if a lot of them are very passionate and would do it voluntarily. I didn’t want any of them to be in that project without funding.”
Katrien, how about your experiences with funding?
Kolenberg \ “When we did the experiment, we ran on very little funding as people took part on a voluntary basis. What I noticed is that there’s a growing interest in art and sciences or art-science as a concept on the academic level as well [as a research field]. Even though to my knowledge there’s no dedicated funding yet for these tracks. But the people who are in it, they can be creative and build it in.”
“A very important aspect of getting funding for your research is to describe how you’re going to disseminate it. We’ve gotten some funding for art-science related things this way. We have one of those research networks, which is focused on exoplanet research, and I got into the collaboration to also supervise research on the interaction between arts, science and education. We got funding to have two PhD students work on these topics, and one of them, Pieter Steyaert, is specifically working on the effectiveness of using arts in STEAM interventions. Pieter is actually one of the founders of SEADS.”
“I think what’s needed to increase the funding is to pull art-science to an academic level. And for that we need papers, we need research. The people who are doing that now are at the pioneering level, but there’s a growing interest in this, and a way to bring budget in, is by bringing it in through science. It is my perception, having been doing this for a while, that it will help to have this really recognized academically.”
Van Doninck \ “I agree with Katrien. We have not yet done that, to also get scientific publications out of this work. I hope this will at some point come out, because that would also validate somehow for a broader audience, and especially for scientists, to look a lot at scientific papers as a validation process to show that indeed these strong interactions give results, and the added value of it.”
How about organizational support?
Kolenberg \ “It’s definitely important.”
Van Doninck \ “Caroline Pauwels was very good at stimulating this at the very base. She created a lot of projects where she brought together these people. As a follow up of Caroline’s work I really would like to push this further.”
“They’re picking it up in the rectoral team of ULB and we’re thinking about creating opportunities. I’m in the think tank now of the university to create a kind of center around art and science. We also have “Ohme” at ULB, a very beautiful initiative of artists and scientists together who create a lot of beautiful work. There are a lot of other initiatives, but we can’t always find them.”
“We want to have visibility outside the university and also for funding this will help. I will also share all my funding expertise that I have acquired so that the others at the university can also find their budgets. It’s not the idea that the university suddenly has to invest all of it. We’re really trying to also consolidate this know-how that I built up in the university, by creating a kind of art and science center. Society, culture, and science bring all these people together. And I see that in many universities it’s really growing. The more it grows, the more budget will become available.”
What are your plans for the future to bring arts and science together?
Van Doninck \ “What I realize, is that a lot of scientific discoveries are hidden to the public. They’re in scientific papers, but they’re really not accessible to the public. I’ve seen only a few professors or a few science communication departments within the university that sometimes bring out a more vulgarized paper and knowledge, but there is so much going on there, so many interesting discoveries at so many levels.”
“I really hope that through this interaction there will be much more knowledge visible towards the whole outside world. Because we shouldn’t forget, as academics, we’re paid by the tax system, so in fact it’s the public who pays. We know that there’s a risk nowadays in our society about investing in fundamental science. I feel that a lot, and in art too. There are always these questions; what is the applied part? And it’s a real problem because we’ve seen so many times that big innovations, even Nobel prizes, have come out of serendipity, fundamental research, critical thinking. And that’s why we need to have our society convinced that it’s important to invest in it, but how can they know what’s the result?”
“It’s really important, if you want society to continue to invest in this fundamental research, to share our discoveries with society. And to share it, journalism remains very important, but I think there are other ways, and combining art and science has been a very beautiful way to bring this science outside and also to bring science further. It’s not only communicating science, but it’s also bringing scientific thinking even further. That’s why I think it’s really important that we share this more often so that people are willing to invest in it.”
Kolenberg \ “I enjoy witnessing how more and more, as art and science get intertwined, it takes away the box-thinking that we’re maybe prone to do because our education also kind of brings us into that.”
“I think we can’t expect a revolution to happen in education because it is very slow to change, the system of education, the way that topics are taught separately, that’s probably going to continue for a while. But I think by communicating, bringing in artistic practices and thinking and methodologies, we can lower these walls between the disciplines, which I think will make people more open."
"In general, it is beneficial to have a more open mind and a more wide-angle view. I think art can help to achieve that.”
Katrien Kolenberg
“I also look forward to seeing more academic papers appear as well, through my students and through the work that is being done now. I am teaching science communication too. I really like to witness how art influences the way my students communicate, not in the classical way, but more and more innovative. There are so many things that can be explored, and art can help with that.”
“What I find really fascinating is this multi-sensory exploration of data and art can also contribute to making that a more mainstream way of dealing with the world that we’re perceiving around us.”
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