Near the ticket counter of Majestic metro station, a cut-out of a human body stands next to a rack with glass containers of various sizes. Inside the labelled containers is some black substance that looks like tiny pieces of coal. A man and a woman in black t-shirts sit next to the rack. A passenger exiting the metro station mistakes them for salespeople selling Ayurveda medicines. They are volunteers of Science Gallery Bengaluru (SCB) sitting next to artist Daniela Brill Estrada’s exhibit, Allotropy of Mine, which indicates the amount of carbon in our bodies. “Each glass bottle in her work illustrates the carbon contained in the different tissues, organs, and molecules of her own body,” the SCB volunteers explain. The exhibit wants us to contemplate these two questions: Is there a difference between the carbon atoms in the glass bottles and within our bodies? And how do we come to understand our body through carbon?
Allotropy of Mine is one of the four exhibits set up across four metro stations in Bengaluru — Majestic, MG Road, Indiranagar, and Sandal Soap Factory — as a part of SCB’s CARBON #inthecity exhibition.
The purpose of CARBON #inthecity is to explore our relationship with carbon in our bodies, cities, and transit systems.
Jahnavi Phalkey, SCB’s executive director and a member of the curatorial team for CARBON #inthecity, says the exhibition is a part of SCB’s efforts to enrich public discourses about climate change.
“In the last couple of decades, we have come to see carbon as a problem element. The political, economic, and public discourse on it is one of taming, reducing, and containing or trading it. We have lost sight of the fact that carbon is fundamental to life on our planet – it is integral to living (and non-living) matter and cannot be simply wished away or tampered with without long-term consequences,” she says.
Art and science
All four exhibits — Allotropy of Mine, Hydrocarbons, Streichhölzer., and Jīvāṇu — are an amalgamation of art and science. Each one looks at carbon from a unique perspective transcending the binary labels of ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
Daniella, for instance, wanted to explore ideas of “non-hierarchical studies” on matter. She has played with the visual representation of the amount of carbon in the body, using charcoal, another type of matter constructed out of carbon atoms.
“Going back and exploring the origin of the chemical elements in the cosmos, and presenting the different ways they are present on Earth — as living, mineral, artificial or even digital matter — I try to open a space to imagine how every atom born out of a cosmic event becomes the different types of matter. In Allotropy of Mine, I wonder about the fundamental differences between living and non-living matter,” she says.
“A human’s body is 18% carbon. This means, for my body to be alive there are 10.8kg of carbon atoms building my cells, my tissue, DNA, glucose, and so on,” explains Daniella.
Her work is an installation of 10.8 kg of carbon in the form of coal inside different glass bottles. Each bottle poetically represents the weight of carbon in various parts of her body.
Screengrab of the video exhibit Hydrocarbons | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
“I have been wondering about the elements constituting my body, and how they find each other here on earth to grow this way, build my legs, my skin, my neurons,” she adds.
“In collaboration with scientists, researchers and other artists, I proposed different ways of artistically visualising, representing, analysing, and studying matter in different forms. This piece is the beginning of my long research about carbon and carbon atoms — the way this specific element can build living and inert matter, its importance for the cycles on Earth, and its use in fundamental science and artistic practices.”
Through her exhibit, she asks the following questions:- “What is the difference between those carbon atoms and inside the body? Why are some alive and others not? What is the reason for these atoms to be responsible for all organic matter, besides it having the chemical abilities to create compound molecules?”
Engaging the public
This isn’t the first time SCB has sought the services of art for science. “At Science Gallery Bengaluru we are moving away from the ‘science communication’ model to one of ‘public engagement’. We wish to become a two-way bridge between research and the public where our work is to establish the relevance of fundamental rigorous knowledge to a good life on this planet. As such we are agnostic to disciplinary boundaries as well as to forms of creative expression, including art,” says Jhanavi.
Apart from #inthecity — the collection of four pop-up exhibits across four metro stations — CARBON features over 70 events, including a film festival with the participation of over 30 artists.
The exhibition is in association with the University of Zurich, Raman Research Institute (RRI), the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), and York University, and with funding from Swissnex, the Swiss Arts Council, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures (TESF), Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS), and Canada Council for the Arts.
The pop-up exhibition in the metro stations will be on till the end of October. For more information, visit carbon.scigalleryblr.or
