This spring marks the 34th Annual Arts + Business Council Awards Celebration, an opportunity for us to shine a spotlight on the leaders,  volunteers, artists, organizations, and partnerships that are doing groundbreaking work to support the creative economy.

Business + Arts Partnership Award

INTEGRAL MOLECULAR + UNIVERSITY CITY SCIENCE CENTER

We’re proud to announce Integral Molecular and University City Science Center as the 2019 recipients of the Business + Arts Partnership Award. This award is granted to a successful partnership between a business and an arts or cultural organization. The union must be preeminent and clearly demonstrate the roles of leadership from each party as well as their shared benefits.

ABOUT THE PARTNERSHIP

In 2017, the University City Science Center, in partnership with biotech company Integral Molecular, established a new artist-in-residence program known as the BioArt Residency. The BioArt Residency was designed to improve the understanding of science and biotechnology in all of our lives, foster a creative dialog between artists and scientists, and create a direct positive impact on human health. The BioArt Residency is an ideal example of how art—in this case, the visual arts—and science can converge to communicate complex scientific concepts in a profound yet clear manner. The program is designed to get people excited about science; to educate the public about new developments in biotechnology; and to explore not only the health aspects, but also the social and cultural implications of scientific development.

What began as a pilot three-month residency, the BioArt Residency emerged into a three-year program featuring a number of internationally recognized artists, such as Laura Splan and Heather Dewey-Hagborg Splan’s conceptually-based art is rooted in craft, sculpture, fibers and new media. Through the residency program, she conducted research on the materiality of science and the representation of biomedical imagery manipulating living cells, tissue, and DNA. More recently, Dewey-Hagborg created a custom virus able to increase the production of oxytocin, a hormone that induces feelings of love, kindness, and empathy. The project titled Lovesick, was envisioned as an activist intervention designed to combat the alienation and disconnection of the present. Echoing recent debates around genetic editing and the role of ethics in science, Lovesick amplifies the dialog around the possibility of selecting one’s emotions through biotechnology.

The common thread that unites all BioArt residents is the use of creative models that use scientific tools to ask new questions. For the scientists at Integral Molecular, the residency allows them to gain a new way to interpret their research and see their work from a new perspective.

34th Annual Awards Celebration

Together with over 500 business, legal, technology, and creative professionals, we’ll be gathering to honor and celebrate these exceptional individuals and organizations who drive change and innovation in our communities.

May 29, 2019 | 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. | Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

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