Tag Archives: art/science

“Science and Sensibility: Method Meets Art,”a transdisciplinary conference from October 17-18, 2026 at the University of Oxford, UK and online

Leave a reply

Somehow, I must have missed the earlier notices but, on the upside, the folks at the London Arts-Based Research Centre (LABRC) have extended the deadline to September 1, 2026 for anyone wanting to submit a proposal in response to the Call for Papers. Here’s more from an August 13 2026 LABRC notice (received via email),

We would like to announce that the proposal deadline for our Science and Sensibility transdisciplinary conference has now been extended to September 1. Kindly find the conference details below, or visit the conference webpage on https://labrc.co.uk/science-and-sensibility-2026/

For further queries, kindly contact our conference team on conferences@labrc.co.uk 

We look forward to receiving your proposals.

Kind regards,

The LABRC Team

“Science and Sensibility: Method Meets Art”
 A Transdisciplinary Conference

When: October 17-18, 2026
Where: University of Oxford, UK and online

Fees (for both attendees and presenters):
£180 (In person participation)
£100 (Online participation)
Prices exclude Eventbrite fees

Proposal Submission Deadline: September 1, 2026

Proposal form on: https://forms.gle/xyGsPLShekVkNtZ29

Call for Papers

“Art and science bear intrinsic similarities in their attempts to illuminate aspects of the human condition. Grounded in exploration, revelation, and representation, art and science work toward advancing human understanding”, Patricia Leavy, Method Meets Art.
 

According to Richard Dawkins, “There’s real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality”. So why are art and science sometimes considered as two separate fields, rather than two different sides of the same coin? And who says that scientists, engineers, and medical researchers take interest only in matters within the boundaries of the laboratories and hospitals? How might the perspective of art provide fresh avenues for understanding and contribute significantly to the enrichment of scientific knowledge? For poets, writers, and artists there are no such boundaries, for there is poetic wisdom in scientific knowledge, beauty in anatomy, and concepts worth celebrating in writing. And for biographers and memoirists, the medical humanities offer experiences that are worth preserving in prose. Our forthcoming conference seeks to deconstruct the common divide between two seemingly distinct disciplines of art and science, building bridges instead of boundaries, and showing the importance of creatively contemplating, cherishing, and preserving the beauty of what we learn and experience.

This conference, therefore, aims to bring together scholars, creatives, and other arts-based researchers from different disciplines working on topics related to transdisciplinarity, with a focus on the bridging of science with the arts. You may be a scientist or a medical practitioner who writes poems and stories or takes on another art (such as music, sculpture, the visual arts, etc.) or alternatively, you may be a creative inspired by science, or a practioner [sic] in a field that utilises creative approaches for scientific purposes—so the intertwining of your thoughts, ideas, and creativity are welcome, and we can’t wait to hear about your work that combines your creativity with science!

Send us your proposals by August 31st.[extended to September 1, 2026]  Presenters can either share academic papers and/or creative work (poetry, prose, photography, music, painting, etc.), as we highly encourage arts-based research. We welcome proposals from scholars (of all disciplines), creatives, graduate students, practitioners and professionals.

So whether you are working on research bridging art with creativity, or you have a piece containing astronomical images, eco-poetry, aesthetic reflections on chemicals and substances, lunar photography, artistic depictions of the human body, alchemical musings, art and arithmetic, psychological fiction (or non-fiction), an ode to omicron, or any other creative pieces arising from “scientific” inspiration, please share them with us!

We welcome 15-minute presentations on topics related (but certainly not limited to) the following fields:

  • Fiction as a mode for knowledge
  • Transdisciplinarity in its various forms
  • Music-based practices
  • A/r/tography
  • Physics as an inspiration in literature
  • Chemistry and the culinary, literary or visual arts
  • Astrophotography
  • Alchemy as an art and science
  • Psychology and the arts
  • Symbolic healing
  • Ecopoetics
  • Anatomy in painting
  • The medical humanities
  • Poetry and medicine
  • Photography and medical technology
  • Ruminations based on scientific theories
  • Space poetry
  • Art therapy
  • Music and mathematical formulas
  • Viruses and philosophy
  • The human body
  • Mental illness and the arts
  • Quantum physics and artistic expression
  • Technological advancements and their impact on artistic creation
  • Mathematical patterns in visual arts
  • Neuroscience and creativity
  • Climate change and environmental art
  • Data visualization as an art form
  • Ethical considerations in scientific art collaborations
  • Evolutionary biology and literature
  • Augmented reality and immersive storytelling
  • Artificial intelligence and its role in creative processes
  • Bioart and biotechnology in artistic practice
  • Intersection of robotics and performance art
  • Astronomy and music composition
  • Psychology of color in visual arts
  • Medical imaging techniques and artistic interpretation
  • Intersection of archaeology and art history
  • Cognitive science and theater/performance studies
  • Genetics and contemporary art practices
  • Philosophy of science and its influence on artistic discourse
  • Ecological activism through artistic interventions
  • Anthropology and the representation of cultures in art
  • Social sciences and documentary photography
  • Nanotechnology and its implications for artistic materials
  • Ethnomusicology and cultural expressions of scientific knowledge
  • Marine biology and marine-inspired art forms

Kindly fill out the proposal form by September 1, 2026.

For further queries, please email us on conferences@labrc.co.uk, and kindly allow us at least 2-3 working days to respond.

Want more inspiration? Check out our recently released issue of our literary and arts journal, Indelible, with the special theme of “Science and Sensibility”!

Conference Webpage

Lots of options. Good luck with your submissions.

Fish, entanglement and art at HollyHock In Canada

Leave a reply
Shortjaw Cisco, 2016. Illustration by Zoe Todd. [downloaded from https://thetyee.ca/Presents/2026/07/20/Hollyhock-Art-Entanglement/]

Hollyhock Cortes Island Retreat Center has roots in the 1960s and 1970s and that is still perceptible today in some of its programmes and language around those programmes. So, after you get past the ‘scientific’ aspects, you will enter the world of the touchy-feely, the New Age, the Spiritually Enlightened, or call it what you will.

First, the science in a July 20, 2026 item of sponsored content in The Tyee, Note: Links have been removed,

Hollyhock Invites You to ‘The Art of Entanglement’

A five-day journey into spirit, art and science showcases the interconnectedness of all things.

What if I told you that you are part fish? Not metaphorically, but scientifically.

This is the inspiration for Zoe Todd and Courtney Chetwynd’s “The Art of Entanglement” program: a five-day immersive, somatic journey in October 2026 that fuses spirit, art and science.

The program takes place at Hollyhock, a learning and leadership centre on Cortes Island that draws people working toward a better world.

Fish were the first animals with backbones, and we inherited their basic blueprint. Scientists like Neil Shubin and Yara Haridy have traced the human brain, skull and teeth back through the fossil record to these aquatic ancestors.

Your teeth, for example, began more than 450 million years ago as bumps on the skin of ancient fish.

Truly, when you glimpse one in the water, you’re seeing a relative. Chetwynd explains that upon arriving at Hollyhock, “the first thing we do is go down to the water, introduce ourselves, make an offering.” This forms a relationship with the island.

“It tells me what to do,” she explains. “It creates the sessions.”

Chetwynd is an interdisciplinary artist-researcher rooted in the eastern and western Arctic, where her work focuses on the relationships between people, place and water.

Todd is a Canada Research Chair at Simon Fraser University and a citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation. She has spent years on the question of what fish can teach us, founding the field of critical Indigenous fish philosophy.

Together, they joyfully reject the colonial notion that spirit, art and science belong in separate rooms.

Todd envisioned a program that would support people to face some of the biggest challenges of our time in a way that she describes as “immersive, joyful… defiant, playful.”

In their 2025 program, “Fish as Storytellers,” 23 participants gathered at Hollyhock, among them artists, scientists, land defenders, teachers, mathematicians and naturopathic doctors.

…

Here’s more from Hollyhock’s The Art of Entanglement: Fish, Flow, and Knowing programme page, Note: It takes place from October 2 – 7, 2026,

Dive into a creative world where fish, water, and story are teachers. Building on the energy and excitement of last year’s “Fish as Storytellers”, this year’s program moves more deeply into themes of entanglement, reciprocity, and relational ways of knowing.

Through art-making, storytelling, and land-based reflection, we’ll explore how knowledge moves in quiet and unexpected ways—appearing in the gestures of water, the memory held in natural materials, and the relationships we build with one another. This experience offers a welcoming entry point for anyone curious about environmental storytelling, interdisciplinary practice, or creative approaches to sense-making.

Participants will move through an intuitive, sensory-based process designed to help reconnect with subtle and embodied forms of knowing. You’ll experiment with emergent, relational creative practices, treating story, material, and movement as pathways to insight, reflection, and discovery.

Together, we’ll explore how creativity can deepen our connection to place and community, offering fresh ways of engaging with the natural world and the narratives that shape it. Following metaphors of flow and movement, we’ll notice how stories travel between bodies, waters, and communities—and how art-making can become a site of connection, curiosity, and transformation.

Whether you’re joining us for the first time or returning to dive deeper, this workshop offers a vibrant space where creativity, land, and collective meaning-making come alive.

What You’ll Gain

  • A creative and supportive space to explore storytelling and artistic expression in connection with fish, water, land, and possible futures
  • Renewed joy and curiosity, rediscovering how stories and art can offer grounding, reflection, and resilience—especially in times of uncertainty or change
  • New ways of engaging with environmental and cultural narratives through creative, intuitive, and interdisciplinary approaches that honour land and community
  • A sense of belonging and shared learning alongside others with diverse experiences and ways of knowing
  • Fresh perspectives on your relationship with water, fish, land, and story, rooted in reciprocity, care, and ethical relational practice
  • A deeper awareness of metaphysical and intuitive connections with the natural world—and how they shape creative work and understanding

This Program is for You if

  • You’re curious about storytelling, art, and creative expression as ways to engage with environmental and cultural themes
  • You’re seeking a welcoming, inclusive space to experiment creatively—no prior artistic experience required
  • You feel a connection to, or want to explore relationships between, water, fish,land, and community
  • You’re interested in how stories and creative practices can help make sense of collective crises and change
  • You want to deepen relational, intuitive, or land-informed ways of knowing through hands-on practice

…

Dr. Zoe Todd (she/they) is an Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Indigenous Governance and Freshwater Fish Futures at Simon Fraser University. They are a citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation and a practice-led artist-researcher from Alberta who studies the relationships between Indigenous sovereignty and freshwater fish futures in Canada. They are a co-founder of the Institute for Freshwater Fish Futures, which is a collaborative Indigenous-led initiative that is ‘restor(y)ing fish futures, together’ across plural watersheds. They are a member of the class of 2020 of the College of New Scholars of the Royal Society of Canada.

Courtney Chetwynd

Dr. Courtney Chetwynd is an interdisciplinary artist–researcher and community organizer, rooted from childhood in communities of the Eastern and Western Arctic, where she continues to make her home. She approaches art, research, and community care as interconnected practices shaped by place, reciprocity, and relational knowing. She holds a Ph.D. in practice-led research and interdisciplinary studies from the University of Dundee’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, along with an MFA from the University of Calgary and a BFA from Mount Allison University. Her artistic and academic work explores embodied and place-based knowledge through land-based methods, sensory inquiry, and collaborative processes with human and more-than-human relations.

Courtney’s community work spans health and well-being, climate resilience, food security, and culturally grounded mental-health responses. She brings a trauma-informed, relational approach to organizing—building programs that support collective resilience, centre local leadership, and honour the emotional and cultural realities of Northern communities. A bridge-builder across sectors, she translates between artistic, academic, bureaucratic, and community worlds to make systems more navigable and supportive.

Her academic and artwork have been exhibited nationally and internationally. She has been recognized through grants and awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, the University of Calgary, the Centre for Research in the Fine Arts, the Government of the Northwest Territories, and the Northwest Territories Arts Council.

At the heart of her practice is the understanding that place is an active collaborator—shaping story, memory, and meaning. Through interdisciplinary inquiry and thoughtful material engagement, she creates work that is resonant, poetic, and grounded in the relational ecologies of the North. Her practice functions as an ecosystem, weaving together art-making, community stewardship, and land-based learning into forms of cultural, emotional, and collective care.

The programme fee is bundled in with the cost of accommodation and food. I’ve checked and a number of options are currently \sold out’ so if you’re interested, you might want to Register now.

Acoustics and the colo(U)r of the theatre and a Vancouver (Canada) Indian Summer 2026 ‘plant music’ event

Leave a reply
Caption: Image stills from the various colors of concert halls that were tested on listeners. Credit: Drouzas et al.

A February 24, 2026 American Institute of Physics (AIP) news release (also on EurekAlert) showcases some intriguing research into how colour affects us in unexpected ways; it seems that sight and sound are linked,

Live music can engage more than just one sense, despite it being an auditory medium. Lighting and visual effects can enhance the listening experience, but it is unclear if they can also affect the impression of the sound.

In JASA [Journal of the Acoustical Society of America], published on behalf of the Acoustical Society of America by AIP Publishing, researchers from Germany’s Technical University of Berlin found that the color of a concert hall has an impact on the sound perception of a listener.

“Room acoustics perception is multidimensional,” said author Stefan Weinzierl. “So, we perceive halls as more reverberant or less reverberant; we perceive them as louder or softer, but we also perceive different timbres of a hall — a hall can appear warm, [or] it can appear bright or metallic in sound.”

To test the effects of a hall’s color on sound perception, participants listened to a recorded concert in red, green, and blue venues that varied in hues, brightness, and saturation, creating 12 different-colored environments. Creating multiple venues with chairs, curtains, stages, walls, and decor wasn’t viable, so the researchers used virtual reality platforms to simulate the various concert halls. To make the experience as authentic as possible, participants watched the performances using headphones with binaural technology that could adjust the sound as they moved their heads.

The participants listened to four different music performances — two on violin and two on clarinet — with compositions of varying tempo and time periods and were asked to rate the performances based on liking, strength, reverberance, and timbre.

The researchers discovered a clear correlation between the visual design of the hall and the perceived timbre of the music. Timbre, sometimes understood as the “sound color” of music, was most affected by the visual color. More saturated colors, which appear visually cooler — especially in green and blue — evoked a colder sound color. The participants also tended to have higher “liking” scores of music in darker concert halls. Both effects were enhanced by the participants’ personal music experience.

There was no influence on perceived loudness based on the color of the concert hall, confirming other psychological studies.

“Considering the effort that is done to improve acoustical properties — all the money that is spent for making a concert hall sound well — I think it should not be overlooked that the visual appearance makes its contribution [to] the sound of the hall,” Weinzierl said.

Weinzierl wants to encourage architects and acousticians to consider all elements of space when designing places where music will be enjoyed, down to the fabric of the chairs.

“If you design a concert hall, don’t forget to think about the visual appearance,” Weinzierl said. “It will have an effect on how the sound is perceived.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

The influence of the color design of auditoriums on room acoustic impression by Christos Drouzas,
, Stefan Weinzierl. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. volume 159, Issue 2 February 2026 1674–1684 (2026) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0042275 Published online February 24, 2026

This paper is open access.

Another sensual crossover and a July 14, 2026 event in Vancouver (Canada)

It seems sound and taste are linked. A local musician Tarun Nayar (Modern Biology and purveyor of ‘mushroom music’), collaborated with Burdock & Co. restaurant for a series of special dinners, from my October 10, 2025 posting,,

The talk of music, visual art, physics, and “… a continuous process of translation, where each medium reconfigures the other” reminded me of Tarun Nayar (Modern Biology) and his work as described in my May 27, 2022 posting “The sound of the mushroom,” where he sonifies data he collects from mushrooms and other plants,

…

I have a Modern Biology update, which takes the music to an unexpected place, from a June 23, 2025 article by Barb Sligl for MONTECRISTO magazine, (Vancouver, Canada-based)

In the cocoon-like interior of the restaurant Burdock & Co, [emphasis mine] headphone-clad diners focus intently on the plates before them. Forks pause midair between bites as people don’t just taste, they also listen to the food. I watch the gleam of neon-illuminated earcups—like blips on an amplifier—and tune in to the warbles emitting from a DJ setup, where a tangle of cables is plugged into a Buddha’s hand citron.

Behind the deck is Tarun Nayar, the Vancouver-based musician known as Modern Biology. He’s performing here for the first of a new series of Taste Sound dinners. Tonight, the theme is “Citrus-Scented Rain Under a Snow Moon,” a sensory meld of electronic and organic that’s a collaboration between Nayar and Andrea Carlson, the chef-owner of the Michelin-starred restaurant.

As I sample each dish, Nayar plays ambient music that is textural, moody, atmospheric—a trippy translation of the plant ingredients’ bioelectricity. The Buddha’s hand is murmuring. The Japanese sudachi fruit [a citrus found in Japan] is singing. Kind of. Nayar is channelling their fluctuations of energy—via electrodes and clips attached to the fruit—into a sonic composition at the intersection of music and biology.

The latent life force of the diminutive sudachi sphere is literally amplified in Nayar’s interpretation of its electrical currents. And its yuzu-like flavour intensifies in my mouth. …

This isn’t a tasting event but should you be in Vancouver (Canada), there is a July 13, 2026 performance by Tarun Nayar at Vancouuer’s Van Dusen Botanical Garden at 7 pm as part of the 2026 Indian Summer programme. Elena Massing’s July 8, 2026 article for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) news online website describes proposed performance,

… Tarun Nayar performs electronic music under the name Modern Biology, merging his classical training with synthesizers and other tools.

Nayar left his bioinformatics career at the Genome Sciences Centre — which does life sciences research — about 20 years ago to pursue music full time, playing in the Vancouver-based world music band Delhi 2 Dublin. As a pandemic project, he started building synthesizers and hooking them up to plants to turn their electrical fluctuations into sound. Though he didn’t invent plant music, he’s one of the genre’s better-known artists. He started posting his experiments on social media and now has almost half a million followers.

Modern Biology is ever-changing. Like Ramani, [Shruti Ramani, a vocalist fronting jazz fusion ensemble Raagaverse, also part of Indian Summer 2026] Nayar grew up learning Indian styles of improvisation. “Indian classical music is heavily influenced by time of day, by season, by emotion, by flavours,” says Nayar. “Those are the kind of things that colour our performances.”

The plants themselves are unpredictable. For his July 13 [2026] performance at VanDusen Botanical Garden, he’ll be plugging into the native plants of B.C., and it’s hard to know what will happen until the day arrives. “Plants are a lot less active at night,” Nayar says, “or playing in the rain and summer when plants are just blasting with electricity because they’re photosynthesizing like crazy. So it’s also heavily dependent on nature.”

…

John Lucas’s July 6, 2026 article for Stir offers more details and advice such as this,

…

As part of this year’s Indian Summer Festival, Modern Biology will perform at VanDusen Botanical Garden’s Great Lawn. For this picnic-style event, attendees are invited to bring their own blankets, cushions, and festival chairs and immerse themselves in a meditative headspace.

…

A general admission ticket for Nayar’s July 13, 2026 event is $55.70 + tax.

Citizen science birding in Vancouver, Canada: a May 2, 2026 panel in Stanley Park

Leave a reply

The image above highlights a May 2, 2026 Citizen Science Birding Panel in Vancouver. An April 19, 2026 Stanley Park Ecology Society’s (SPES) notice (received via email) reveals more,

We’re reaching out with a special invitation to join us on May 2 [2026] for an engaging evening of conversation and connection.

Your Observation Matters: Citizen Science in Birding is a panel discussion that explores how everyday bird sightings (yes, even yours) can contribute to real scientific research and conservation efforts. Whether you’re an experienced birder or just starting to notice the birds around you, this event will offer insight into how small observations can make a big impact.

The evening will also include a reception with light refreshments, a live audience Q&A, and guided bird walks, so you can connect, learn, and experience birding in action.

We’d love to see you there!

SPES has more detail on its event page,

Your Observation Matters: Citizen Science in Birding Panel

May marks the middle of spring avian migration for Vancouver. During this incredible time, millions of birds follow the pacific flyway from as far south as Argentina to their spring…

2 May 2026 @ 9:30 am – 1:30 pm PDT

Location: Stanley Park Pavillion
Add to:Google Calendar

Get Tickets

Problems using the ticket form below? You can also get tickets here.

…

SPES uses the Zeffy platform to process payments, so your entire purchase goes to us. If you’d like to help Zeffy keep running its services, you can choose to tip them. If you don’t want to, choose “Other” in the drop-down menu and then enter $0.

May marks the middle of spring avian migration for Vancouver. During this incredible time, millions of birds follow the pacific flyway from as far south as Argentina to their spring breeding grounds as far north as Alaska. Every year in May, World Migratory Bird Day, and the Greater Vancouver Bird Celebration promote birding and bird conservation opportunities. The 2026 World Migratory Bird Day conservation theme is: Every Bird Counts, Your Observations Matter, highlighting the importance of Citizen Science in contributing to bird conservation efforts.

Your Observation Matters! Join Stanley Park Ecology for a hybrid remote/in-person panel discussion on citizen science in birding, featuring local scientists and community leaders. Hear how your iNaturalist and eBird observations are used to help birds in BC and around the world.

Location: Stanley Park Pavillion

About the Event:

What is citizen science? How can it be used to help birds in Greater Vancouver? How can I get involved? Hear from leaders in birding with backgrounds spanning from academic research to Indigenous law. The panelists will explore the opportunities and impacts of citizen science, followed by an audience Q/A section, and reception with refreshments.

Your ticket includes: admission to the panel discussion, refreshments during the reception, and discounts for additional bird walks. A limited number of tickets will be available with front of house seats, and complimentary parking for the day in Stanley Park.

Special thank you to our neighbors at Stanley Park Pavillion for hosting us in the Lord Stanley Ballroom.

Accompanying Bird Walks:

Interested in spending more time with the birds? In addition to the hybrid remote/in-person panel discussion, we will be hosting bird walks in Stanley Park with members of the panel. A discount code to these bird walks will be included with your registration to this event. Stay tuned for more information.

…

Bird Walk with Dr Bird: Date TBC [Note: I had to include a bird walk with Dr. Bird]

…

Speaker Bios:

Scott Loarie
Dr. Scott Loarie is the Executive Director at iNaturalist, and holds degrees in Biology and Environmental Science. At iNaturalist, Scott champions the power of Citizen Science as more than just a tool to record observations, but as a fundamental infrastructure to supercharge connection to nature, and to drive data based conservation efforts. 

John Reynolds
Dr. John Reynolds is a professor at Simon Fraser University, where he holds the Tom Buell Chair in Aquatic Conservation. He has won several international awards for his scientific research, is the past Chair of COSEWIC (Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada), and has been inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His research has always been driven by his obsession with natural history. His addiction to citizen science initiatives, including iNaturalist and eBird, led to his co-founding of the BC Biodiversity Program, which has amassed over 1.4 million mapped records of plants, animals, and fungi across the province.

David Bird
As an Emeritus Professor of Wildlife Biology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec and now living on Vancouver Island, David has co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers, supervised 50 graduate students, mostly on birds of prey and human-wildlife conflicts, and has written and/or edited more than a dozen nature books, including Birds of Canada and Pocket Birds of Canada.  David has earned several awards for his research and education efforts and is heading a team to make the Canada Jay Canada’s National Bird.  Besides his innumerable public lectures and radio and television appearances, he contributes regularly on bird watching to BWD and Canadian Wildlife magazines.

Jeffrey Nicholls
Jeff is a member of the Ganhada – ‘Raven Clan’ of the Tsimshian Nation, president of RAVEN Trust, and Lawyer for Ratcliff LLP. RAVEN works to support Indigenous Nations upholding their rights in court through fundraising and public education campaigns. His work in birding connects the importance of birds, habitat, and Indigenous law. He has spoken at the 2025 Frontiers in Ornithology Student Symposium, and was featured in the Summer 2021 edition of Wingspan Magazine.

Trenton Schulz-Franco
Trentön is an advocate for Indigenous-led stewardship, an artist with a background in law, ecology, and geo-political commentary, as well as being passionate about photography, canoe guiding, and cricket. Originally from the traditional and ancestral lands of the W̱SÁNEĆ communities and the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples on Vancouver Island, Trenton is the founder of the Special Bird Service Society (SBS), International Swift Stewardship Society (ISS) & the Nest Network. SBS is a community-focused organization dedicated to making nature more accessible for our Global Majority and 2SLGBTQ+ communities across the Salish Coast. Through birding-centered education, recreation, and habitat restoration initiatives, SBS fosters connection, inclusivity, and environmental stewardship.

Event Schedule:

9:30 AM – Doors Open

Join us in the Lord Stanley Ballroom. Pick up some coffee and tea at the reception area and find your seat.

10 AM – Event Opening and Land Welcome

Learn about upcoming Greater Vancouver Bird Celebration events as we settle into our seats. Land welcome provided by Talaysay Tours.

10:20 AM – Presentation of 2026 Alan Duncan Award

Join us in congratulating a special leader in local bird conservation. The Alan Duncan Award celebrates community leaders in the interdisciplinary arts and sciences. The 2026 winner will be announced on May 1st!

11:00 AM – Moderated Panel Discussion

Hear about our panelists work, relationships to citizen science, and more.

12:30 pm – Audience Q&A [question and answer]

Join in the discussion! We will have an opportunity for audience members to ask questions of the panelists.

1:00 PM – Reception

Your ticket includes refreshments following the panel discussion. Connect with other birders and enjoy.

1:30 pm – Event Ends

We recommend enjoying lunch at Stanley’s Bar and Grill.

2:00 PM – Optional Post Panel Bird Walk

Join us for more informal discussion as we look for birds in Stanley Park.

Thank you for supporting Stanley Park Ecology.

…

They are keeping tickets affordable with prices ranging from $10 – $30.

Addendum: art/science and the Alan Duncan Bird Conservation Award

The Greater Vancouver Bird Celebration hosts the Alan Duncan Bird Conservation Award webpage, Note: the 2026 winner will be announced on May 2, 2026 (Your Observation Matters: Citizen Science in Birding Panel) at 10:20 am,

The Stanley Park Ecology and the Vancouver Bird Advisory Committee are pleased to offer the Alan Duncan Bird Conservation Award. The award was established to help encourage local bird conservation initiatives through the arts and sciences including critical research on resident, migratory and over-wintering bird species. Presented annually, the award celebrates individuals, groups or organizations that are leading the way in bird conservation within our region.

Alan had a long career as the Vancouver Park Board’s first Environmental Planner and retired in 2020. His passion and dedication to bird conservation could be seen throughout his career. Alan was an active member of the Vancouver Bird Advisory Committee and championed a wide range of bird conservation efforts in our region including the Vancouver Bird Strategy established in 2015, World Migratory Bird Day celebrations and, since 2010, Greater Vancouver Bird Celebration to raise awareness of and appreciation for birds in the city and its environs

…

About the Award

The award will celebrate the achievements of individuals, groups or organizations based on the following criteria that embody Alan’s work and values:

  1. Contributing to Bird Conservation
    • Work in Habitat Protection, including:
      • land stewardship
      • invasive species removal
      • bird friendly gardens
    • Work that encourages more people to care about birds.
    • Work that makes birding more accessible.
  2. Interdisciplinary in Nature
    • Work that mixes art and science, including:
      • Poetry
      • Sketching
      • Photography
      • Writing
      • Design
      • Bird Surveys
      • Community Science
  3. Strong Community Connections
    • Work that brings people together across southern coastal BC.

The winner will receive a cash prize of $1500, be recognized through different media including social media and our website, and will have the opportunity to speak about their work during the Greater Vancouver Bird Celebration.

The winner will be selected by a subcommittee of the Vancouver Bird Advisory Committee.

Please note that you must be located in British Columbia to participate.

…

Winners

2025 – Trenton Schulz-Franco

Trenton is a multimedia artist with a background in law, ecology, and geo-political commentary, as well as a passion for photography, canoe guiding, and cricket. …

2024 – Melissa Hafting

Melissa has been nominated multiple times over the last few years for her dedication to inclusivity in birding as a beacon of change towards making the birding world more accessible and welcoming to all ages, genders, and races. …

2023 – Kevin Bell

Kevin is a lifelong birder with a long list of accomplishments in bird conservation within the Greater Vancouver region. As a retired nature educator and as a current board member of the Wild Bird Trust of BC. Kevin’s proudest achievement …

2022 – Adam Dhalla

Adam is the creator of Find the Birds,  a free, educational, mobile game about birds & conservation. It’s being played by thousands in BC, across Canada, and in 46 other countries. …

2021 – Carmen Rosen

Founding Artistic Director of Still Moon Arts Society. Carmen’s work as an artist focusses on protecting and restoring the habitat in Renfrew Ravine and Still Creek Watershed. Carmen was actively engaged with artists to put together the Birds, Birds, Birds! Project that lasted two years featuring …

Adam Dhalla and his Find the Birds game were profiled here in a January 7, 2022 posting.

Toronto’s ArtSci Salon and a couple of April 2026 events

Leave a reply

I received (via email) an April 3, 2026 notice from Toronto’s ArtSci Salon featuring two April 2026 art/science events (available online here) being held in Toronto, Note: Some links have been removed,

Beneath the Skin: Biophysical Signals as a Creative Medium

Featuring
Mark-david Hosale 
&
Ilze Briede [Kavi]

Friday, April 10 [2026]
3:00-4:30 pm
Jackman Humanities Building – JHB 100 (first floor)
170 St. George Street [Toronto, Ontario]

This presentation explores an art–science research-creation practice that uses biophysical sensing as a medium for interactive and computational art. Central to this work is The Source (www.biomeci.com), a biosensing platform developed to enable artists and researchers to incorporate physiological signals directly into responsive media systems. The Source supports real-time capture of multiple biophysical signals, including electrocardiography (ECG), electrodermal activity (EDA), electromyography (EMG), electroencephalography (EEG), electrooculography (EOG), and respiratory effort (RSP).  

Mark-David Hosale will introduce The Source and demonstrate how physiological signals provide insight into affective and physiological states and how these states can be used to shape audiovisual, haptic, and multisensory outputs in interactive artworks and performances. 

Ilze Briede [Kavi] will present her academic research and artworks that use The Source, including the collaborative works, Somatic Interventions (2022)and Reimagining Living Ontologies (2024), both of which have resulted in scholarly publications. She will also discuss her current PhD research exploring brain data (EEG) and cybernetic feedback systems in artistic practice. 

The presentation examines how biophysical signals can function not only as measurements of the body but as expressive materials within embodied and cybernetic media systems that expand the sensorium of computational arts.

This is a free public event. Please register via the Eventbrite link here.

This event is organized by the Jackman Humanities Institute Working Group Performing Gestures, Producing Cultures: Towards an Interdisciplinary Understanding of Human Movement.

Sponsored and hosted by Jackman Humanities Institute.

Presented in partnership with ArtSci Salon (https://artscisalon.com/) and BMO Lab (https://bmolab.artsci.utoronto.ca).

Ilze Briede (artist alias Kavi) is a Latvian–Canadian artist and researcher working across visual art, digital design, interactive installation, and live audiovisual performance. Her creative and pedagogical practice engages with biophysical sensing, creative coding, and projection-based media to explore the aesthetic and epistemological potential of physiological data.  Kavi is currently a PhD candidate in Digital Media at York University, Toronto, where her research investigates the design of cybernetic systems for performance and immersive narrative environments driven by real-time biophysical signals.

Mark-David Hosale is a computational artist and composer and an Associate Professor in Computational Arts in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance, and Design at York University. His work explores the boundaries between the virtual and the physical world, spanning performance, public art, and gallery installations. Mark-David is the founder of nD::StudioLab (www.ndstudiolab.com), a research-creation space dedicated to art-science exploration, computational art, and interactive architecture. His research integrates hardware, software, and digital fabrication to create immersive experiences that blur the line between the virtual and the real.

BOOK LAUNCH
Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen
with editors: Neda Atanasoski & Nassim Parvin
Tuesday, April 21, [2026]
5:00-7:00 pm
William Doo Auditorium
45 Willcocks Street
University of Toronto

…

New and emerging technologies, especially ones that infiltrate intimate spaces, relations, homes, and bodies, are often referred to as creepy in media and political discourses. In Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen, Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin introduce a feminist theory of creep that they substantiate through critical engagement with smart homes, smart dust, smart desires, and smart forests toward dreams of feminist futures. Contributing authors further illuminate what is otherwise obscured, assumed, or dismissed in characterizations of technology as creepy or creeping. Considering diverse technologies such as border surveillance and China’s credit system to sexcams and home assistants, the volume’s essays and artworks demonstrate that the potentials and pitfalls of artificial intelligence and digital and robotic technologies cannot be assessed through binaries of seeing/being seen, privacy/surveillance, or harmful/useful. Together, their multifaceted and multimodal approach transcends such binaries, accounting for technological relations that exceed sight to include touch, presence, trust, and diverse modes of collectivity. As such, this volume develops creep as a feminist analytic and creative mode on par with technology’s complex entanglement with intimate, local, and global politics.



…

Neda Atanasoski is Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Maryland.

Nassim Parvin is an Associate Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington.

Please, let us know if you can attend here
This event is supported in part by  SSHRC the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and hosted by New College at the University of Toronto

There you have it.

Cum Grano Salis (with a grain of salt): a March 4 – 28, 2026 art/sci exhibition in Toronto, Canada

Leave a reply

A February 24, 2026 notice (received via email and available here) from Toronto’s ArtSci Salon announces the opening,

CUM GRANO SALIS

March 4-28, 2026
Red Head Gallery
401 Richmond Street W

Opening Reception March 7, [2026]
2:00-5:00 pm

Stay tuned for other related events 

Elaine Whittaker
Matthew Borrett, Teri Donovan, Tracy Gorman, Kelley Aitken, Kaz Ogino, Heidi Breier, Kat Honey, Kai Kan, Kim-Lee Kho, Jim Nason.

Cum grano salis (Latin for ‘with a grain of salt’) is an expression of skepticism. In an era saturated with images, data, and competing truths, the potential for exaggeration and distortion is greater than ever. Doubt is integral to how we perceive and interpret the world today. We move continuously between trust and mistrust, truth and fabrication, constantly pausing to reassess what we have just seen, heard, or absorbed.

Cum Grano Salis invites viewers to enter a constellation of speculative worlds in which uncertainty is not an exception but a condition. Across installations, video, and mixed media artworks, Elaine Whittaker both curates and collaborates with ten artists to imagine what forms of life, survival, and coexistence might emerge on a rapidly changing planet. Drawing on depictions of climate change in speculative and science fiction, the artworks unfold through narrative, atmospheric, and embodied experiences [emphasis mine]. The changes are not a distant abstraction but something we now feel, inhabit, and negotiate.

The exhibition is a story of three interwoven galaxies—distinct yet interconnected—fantasy and scientific inquiry converge [emphasis mine]. Viewers move between our Milky Way galaxy and two fantastical ones, encountering altered ecosystems and technologies. Adaptations blur the boundaries between the plausible and the imagined. Dystopian and utopia impulses intersect. This is what Margaret Atwood terms ‘ustopia’— a fragile balance where loss and possibility coexist, shaped by new forms of cooperation.

In placing climate change and planetary changes within speculative and fictional frameworks, Cum Grano Salis opens space for emotional, poetic, and critical engagement. The exhibition encourages viewers to consider how imagination, storytelling, and world-building might help reframe our understanding of environmental instability and change our relationship to our planet.

Find more information or visit the
Red Head Gallery
Hours: Wed.-Sat. 12:00-5:00 pm

That’s it.

Toronto’s ArtSci Salon and December 2025 events

Leave a reply

I received (via email) a November 25, 2025 notice from Toronto’s ArtSci Salon about some December 2025 art/science events (available online here) being held in Toronto, Note: Some links have been removed,

THE BODY ELECTRIC

Exhibition & Performances
December 5, 6 & 7th, 2025

at Charles Street Video,
76 Geary Ave, Toronto

Opening, reception and performances:
Friday, December 5th at 6pm,
performances start at 7pm.

Exhibition Open to Public:
Saturday, December 6th and Sunday, December 7th
from 12pm – 4pm. 

…

Inspired by Walt Whitman’s visionary poem “I Sing the Body Electric,” this exhibition reimagines the body as a network of electric impulses, voltages, and signals that both generate and transmit lived experiences. Body Electric brings together artists, researchers, performers, and technologists who explore the inner electrical life of the human body through biophysical sensing.

By capturing physiological signals such as brainwaves (EEG), heart rhythms (ECG), and muscle activity (EMG), the exhibition reveals the hidden languages of the body — not as metaphor, but as material, as data, as expression.

Body Electric features contributions from York University faculty, students, and international collaborators. The exhibition builds a living bridge between the past and the present, connecting analogue pioneers with today’s generative futures, and invites us to look into the future with an open and curious mind.

..

Biophysical Movement and Emotion as Computational Interfaces (bioMECI) Workshop 
Charles Street Video, 76 Geary Ave, Toronto
Free with registration (same workshop both days):

Workshop 1: December 13th, 10am–6pm register at:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1934433134579

[or]

Workshop 2: December 14th, 10am–6pm register at:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1941956487129

This Workshop is a collaborative workshop centred on biophysical data, computational art, and performance. At the centre of this workshop is the biophysical sensing toolkit, called The Source (www.biomeci.com). The Source is a wearable device solution for full-spectrum biophysical sensing that integrates with commonly used software platforms, enabling its use in the maker and arts communities. Data gathered from The Source is analyzed using hardware and software tools that interface with popular platforms such as Arduino, Max/MSP, SuperCollider, Ableton Live, TouchDesigner, and Processing. The Source provides real-time access to signals from the brain, heart, muscles, skin and eyes and more. This modular system empowers artists to create responsive artworks that engage directly with the body’s inner states.

…

Here’s more about the exhibition and performances, from the Charles Street Video project webpage,

Inspired by Walt Whitman’s visionary poem “I Sing the Body Electric,” this exhibition …

Electricity governs life on Earth at every scale, from small molecular organisms to sophisticated evolved beings. In the human body, in particular, electricity presents itself as the firing of neurons, the pulse of the heart, the conductivity of the skin, and the flux of emotional states. This exhibition foregrounds electricity not only as a force of animation, but as a creative medium — a raw, natural element that artists can sense, shape, and translate. The electric medium is further carried into the technological domain as a means of instrumentation and expression of gathered data from the human body. Through interactive installations, performances, and sonic-visual systems, Body Electric invites audiences to witness how the body thinks, feels, and reacts beneath the surface. What emerges is a portrait of the human not as a fixed entity, but as an ever-changing field of affective and electrical relations.

…

About the artists

The programme will feature a series of interactive installations, including body-physiology sensing chairs originally conceptualized by artist Alan Macy, a retrospective of the work of artist, composer, and scholar David Rosenboom, and installations by artists from York University’s nD::StudioLab (https://www.ndstudiolab.com/), including Ilze Briede [Kavi], Kwame Kyei-Boateng, Kyle Duffield, Mark-David Hosale, Hrysovalanti Maheras, and Nava Waxman.

It will also include live performances, among them

a new work by composer Gene Coleman with violinist Amy Hillis from York’s Music Department;

a performance by The Global Organoid Orchestra (GOO); and a set by the live-coding collective The Endemics.

The Global Organoid Orchestra (GOO) includes:
*Mark-David Hosale and Ilze Briede [Kavi] in Toronto;
*Diarmid Flatley, Marcos Novak, Iason Paterakis, and Nefeli Manoudaki in Santa Barbara;
*and collaborators at the Kosik Neurobiology Lab, UC Santa Barbara (Ken Kosik, Director),
*along with Tjitse van der Molen and Eve Bodnia.

The Endemics consists of
*Ilze Briede [Kavi] and
*Hrysovalanti Maheras.

bioMECI: Biophysical Movement and Emotion as Computational Interface

You can find out more about bioMECI here and about the Body Electric’s bioMECI workshops here.

Elegant art/science: boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) — touted for their strength, thermal stability and insulating properties — coaxed into visually striking images

Leave a reply

This is the only ‘art’ boron nitride nanotube i could find,

Langmuir 2025, 41, 24, 15270–15282

A June 24, 2025 Rice University news release (also on EurekAlert) makes an art/science announcement, Note: Links have been removed,

In an elegant fusion of art and science, researchers at Rice University have achieved a major milestone in nanomaterials engineering by uncovering how boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) — touted for their strength, thermal stability and insulating properties — can be coaxed into forming ordered liquid crystalline phases in water. Their work, published in Langmuir, the premier American Chemical Society journal in colloid and surface chemistry, was so visually striking it graced the journal’s cover.

That vibrant image, however, represents more than just the beauty of science at the nanoscale. It captures the essence of a new, scalable method to align BNNTs in aqueous solutions using a common bile-salt surfactant — sodium deoxycholate (SDC) — opening the door to next-generation materials for aerospace, electronics and beyond.

“This work is very interesting from the fundamental point of view because it shows that BNNTs can be used as model systems to study novel nanorod liquid crystals,” said Matteo Pasquali, the A.J. Hartsook Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, professor of chemistry, materials science and nanoengineering and corresponding author on the study. “The main advantage is that BNNTs are relatively transparent and easily studied via visible light unlike carbon nanotubes, which form dark liquid crystals that are hard to examine via light microscopy.”

For first author Joe Khoury, the study was more than routine science. Trained as an architect in Syria, he transitioned to chemical engineering after moving to the U.S., but his background in visual design may have helped him see something others might have missed. During a routine purification step, he noticed that as water was filtered from the dispersion, the leftover material became thick and glowed under polarized light — a hallmark of liquid crystal formation. Inspired by this observation, the team hypothesized that increasing the SDC concentration would drive BNNTs to self-assemble into ordered nematic phases.

To test their hypothesis, the researchers conducted a meticulous series of experiments, preparing BNNT-SDC dispersions at varying concentrations. They used polarized light microscopy to observe the transition from disordered states to partially ordered and then fully ordered liquid crystalline phases. Cryogenic electron microscopy provided high-resolution confirmation of BNNT alignment.

Crucially, they produced the first comprehensive phase diagram for BNNTs in surfactant solutions — a predictive map that allows scientists to anticipate how BNNTs will behave at different concentration ratios.

“No one had done this before,” Khoury said. “Previous studies either worked at low BNNT concentrations or used too little surfactant. We showed that if you increase both in the right proportion, you can trigger liquid crystalline ordering without using harsh chemicals or complicated procedures.”

In addition to mapping phase behavior, the team followed a simple, reproducible method to turn these dispersions into thin, well-aligned BNNT films. Using a specialized blade to shear the material onto a glass slide, they fabricated transparent, robust films ideal for thermal management and structural reinforcement applications (think lighter, stronger and more heat-tolerant components in tech devices or aircraft). Using X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy, the team confirmed the alignment at the nanoscale level.

“We demonstrated that nematic alignment in solution can be preserved and translated into solid films,” Khoury said. “That makes this a highly scalable platform for next-gen materials.”

The study lays the groundwork for new research into lyotropic liquid crystals formed from nanorods. Its simplicity — no strong acids, no harsh conditions — makes it accessible to labs worldwide. And its implications stretch from theoretical physics to commercial materials engineering.

“This is just the beginning,” Pasquali said. “With this road map, we can now explore how to fine-tune BNNT alignment for specific applications. It’s not just about making films; it’s about understanding a whole new class of functional nanomaterials.”

Pasquali added that the beauty of the images was mesmerizing.

“When Joe sent me candidate images for the cover, I felt like I was looking at paintings by Dali or Van Gogh,” Pasquali said. “The cover image could be the tower of Barad-dur from ‘The Lord of the Rings’ painted by a surrealist artist.”

Khoury added that this research would not have been possible without the guidance and mentorship from his team and co-authors, including Pasquali; Angel Martí, professor and chair of chemistry and professor of bioengineering and materials science and nanoengineering at Rice; Cheol Park of NASA Langley Research Center; Lyndsey Scammell from BNNT LLC; and Yeshayahu Talmon at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, among others.

This research was supported by the Welch Foundation, BNNT LLC, the Technion Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute and Rice’s Electron Microscopy Center and its Shared Equipment Authority.

Caption: Matteo Pasquali, the A.J. Hartsook Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, professor of chemistry, materials science and nanoengineering, and first author Joe Khoury. Credit: Rice University.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Lyotropic Liquid Crystalline Phase Behavior of Boron Nitride Nanotube Aqueous Dispersions by Joe F. Khoury, Asia Matatyaho Ya’akobi, Alina Chow, Eldar Khabushev, Irina Davidovich, Davide Cavuto, Mingrui Gong, Lyndsey R. Scammell, Cheol Park, Yeshayahu Talmon, Angel A. Martí, Matteo Pasquali. Langmuir 2025, 41, 24, 15270–15282 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.5c00563 Published May 5, 2025 Copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.