Art Meets Neuroscience

by

Whether you follow the news about concussions in sports, cope with dementia, chronic pain or anxiety, or just ruminate and remember, it’s impossible to escape the central role the brain plays in our lives. It controls our every aspect – physical, mental and emotional – mediating our experiences, even our degree of empathy.

As you read these sentences, the nerve cells in your eyes analyze letter shapes and synapses fire through your body. At the same time, your brain questions, perhaps in exasperation, how this text relates to art.

The answer? Neurocraft, an exhibition that brings together art and neuroscience – the study of the brain and the nervous system. It’s on view at the John Buhler Research Centre at the University of Manitoba until March 31.

Organized by the Manitoba Craft Council in partnership with the Manitoba Neuroscience Network, the project matched nine Winnipeg-based artists with nine neuroscientists, most based at the University of Manitoba. Neurocraft is aimed at increasing public awareness about recent research on the brain as well as the creative possibilities of contemporary craft.

While this pairing may seem unlikely, scientists and artists do share common traits – things like curiosity, intense focus, acute sensory perception, attention to detail and a delight in discovery. The resulting show is exceptional, exciting, enlightening and empowering.

Personal interests were key for many involved in the project. For instance, mixed-media artist Dana Kletke collaborated with Tiina Kauppinen, who studies how to help people recover from strokes. Kletke’s mother recently had a stroke caused by bleeding in the brain. “I have watched her difficult journey to re-familiarize herself with things that should be very familiar,” says Kletke. “She continues to struggle with memory and memory loss.”

Kletke created an installation, Blood Clots, from dangling wool threads and balls of felted wool. Working with Kauppinen gave her a chance to understand how memories are lost, and how some can be recovered. “Blood Clots reflects the daily ritual of thinning the blood and the ever present danger of blood clots,” says Kletke.

The pins that anchor the red threads catch the light, gleaming like a crown. Kletke compares them to the myelin sheath that protects the brain. In this context, the piece’s fuzzy woolen “clots” in various tones of red seem threatening. But the overall effect is cathartic, with a message of hope.

Sometimes the connection is less obvious. Artist Heather Komus was paired with Kristine Cowley, who studies nerve recovery after spinal cord injuries. Komus has eclectic interests and her materials vary widely. But, in essence, the work of both concerns the vulnerability of the human body.

For her installation, Memory and Matter, Komus arranged some 70 dehydrated mushrooms in the shape of a brain. Komus, who watched a brain being cut open during an autopsy, sees similarities between the complex networks formed by brain cells and fungal cells, which sometimes invade the human body. “Spores can be inhaled, colonizing organs like the lungs, flowing through the blood stream to the spinal cord and brain,” she says.

Artist Peter Tittenburger has been a mentor and innovator for almost half a century. Like Kletke and Komus, he sees myriad possibilities in discarded materials. He was paired with Gilbert Kirouac, who studies how the brain mediates emotions, particularly fear and anxiety.

Tittenburger used ceramics and mixed media to create Thalamuseum, a series of small creatures covered with cilia and polyps. The piece considers the function of the thalamus, a small region in the brain that transmits sensory input from the body to other parts of the brain, where it can be processed.

Curator Seema Goel, who has a background in both art and science, watched Tittenburger’s creatures evolve as he worked. “They’re sinister in their quiet colonization of open spaces,” she writes in the exhibition catalogue. “Like anxieties multiplying in a lonely mind, they persist and spread. The pieces have an uncanniness to them, both tapping into discomfort and appearing beautifully ordered and touchable. They lurk in wait of prey.”

Neurocraft also includes Lesley Nakonechny, whose textile pillows bear images of neutrons, and Ash Alberg, who created an installation made with weavings, lights, wool and bones. Other artists were Chantel Mierau, Ann Stinner, Gaëtanne Sylvester and Michelle Wilson.

Sari Hannila, outreach director for the Manitoba Neuroscience Network got the ball rolling on the project to increase public awareness of brain research. “This can sometimes be a difficult proposition, as science can often be perceived as inaccessible to the average person,” says Hanilla, a professor at the University of Manitoba’s medical school. “We hope to change that perception, and one of the best ways to accomplish this is through the visual and emotional language of art.”

Neurocraft will also show at the Visual Voice Gallery in Montreal from May 27 to June 24.

Editor's Note: This exhibition closed two weeks early after two pieces of art were destroyed on Saturday, March 19. Winnipeg police were investigating. The show will open in Montreal in May.

John Buhler Atrium

715 McDermot Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3E 0T3

Mon to Fri 9 am – 6 pm