Creating Distinctive Collaborations
The Arts|Science Initiative seeks to cultivate, optimize, and sustain dialogue between artistic and scientific inquiry through collaborative exchange. Cross-fertilization of the arts and the sciences is emerging as one of the most exciting intellectual enterprises. The university-wide Arts Initiative, in partnership with the Office of the Provost and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts established the Arts|Science Initiative with the support of the Divisions of the Biological and Physical Sciences, the Institute for Molecular Engineering, Humanities, and the Office of the Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories. The pursuit of new connections in research and teaching at the nexus of the arts and the sciences is at the heart of this Initiative. It serves as a creative hub within our academic framework and reaches other institutions, and the wider public.

Scholarship—Practice—Emerging Possibilities
The Arts|Science Initiative recognizes that to break new ground and probe complex questions requires travel across disciplines and ventures into unfamiliar territories beyond academic conventions. This conviction reflects the University’s pioneering efforts to promote collaborative research and teaching environments that transcend boundaries. The Arts|Science Initiative builds on this rich culture by connecting artistic practices with scientific investigations. Its vision is to create a platform at the University for a diverse network of scholars, students, and practitioners, in both domains, to nurture crosscutting innovation through fresh approaches and ideas, while remaining committed to rigorous inquiry. We are building networks of resources where ideas can be pushed, inquiries raised, knowledge transferred, and a new set of emergent possibilities revealed. We aim to enhance and influence each discipline’s respective tools, working methodologies, and specific curiosities, thereby contributing to the growing convergence of new paradigms for seeing and knowing in the 21st century.

Opportunities for Exploration & Research
To implement this vision and to develop networks and resources, the Arts|Science Initiative has initiated a series of focused programs through either direct support or co-sponsorship with other University initiatives and departments. These programs are designed to spark conversations between the sciences and the arts to critically engage both faculty and students across a broad spectrum of areas including art history, astronomy and astrophysics, biology, chemistry, cinema and media studies, computer and information science, creative writing, literature, mathematics, medicine, music, physics, theater, and visual arts. These involve the University at all levels and include the Arts|Science Faculty Collaboration Grant and the Graduate Student Collaborative Grants (link to website), visiting artists and scholars, exhibitions, seminars/workshops, student discussion groups, curricular development in consultation with the Arts|Science Faculty Group, and public programs.

To learn more, contact Julie Marie Lemon at jmlemon@uchicago.edu