Sculptress Susan Solano has been inspired by the work of Peter Alonsomedical epidemiologist director of the Global Program on Malaria of the World Health Organization (WHO), to create his work the world of things. The two star in the fifth edition of CNIO Artan initiative of the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) that brings together science and art since 2018 and has been presented in Madrid. The sculpture will be exhibited in the facilities of the center and from the 23rd of this month it can be seen in ARC, the International Contemporary Art Fair of Spain – which takes place between February 23 and 27 – in its own stand. The money raised from the sale of the piece is used entirely to finance cancer research, through the Friends of the CNIO philanthropy initiative.
Amparo Garrido, curator of CNIO Arte, says that Solano “thought about it a lot”, that he had several conditions. One of them was to travel to Mozambique, to the hospital research center that Alonso founded in Manhiça, where he researches malaria and other tropical diseases. Although Solano had already conceptually defined the sculptural piece before traveling, he considered it important to know the perception of those who suffered from malaria. Last November Garrido and Solano spent a week in that country getting to know many of its citizens, especially the little ones. The surprise came when the artist found a cement structure in the schoolyard very similar to the one she had planned in the world of things. In addition to sculpture, the artist accompanies him with drawings made by girls from the Centro de Acolhimento Menino Jesus orphanage. These reflect the experience with the disease in daily life.
The sculpture is made up of assembled wooden modules, supported at one end by a metal structure, from which a metal sheet of corrugated sheet metal hangs over four plastic drums. Solana, who has participated in the presentation through a video call, explains what this work is: “A prospection on research, cooperation, pandemics, specifically malaria, and memory, my memory.”
This initiative has the collaboration of the Banco Santander Foundation. Borja Baselga, its director, assures that science for some may sound like something “too high” and that if we “lower it through art”, it can go much further. Maria Blasco, director of the CNIO, defends that this project is a way for science to inspire art, but also for art to “help tell society about science”. “It seemed interesting to us that society could be told through the gaze of an artist,” she asserts. Both have been present at the event that included Garrido and Luis Francisco Pérez, critic and curator of contemporary art who has guided the presentation with questions to all the participants.
Every year a new work is created at CNIO Arte based on conversations between the scientist and the artist. In the first edition, in 2018, they had the visual artist Eva Lootz and Margarita Salas, a pioneer in molecular biology; in the following edition the couple was formed by the photographer Chema Madoz and Ignacio Cirac, director of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, in Germany; in 2020, the contemporary artist Carmen Calvo and the paleoanthropologist Juan Luis Arsuaga were the protagonists; the last edition was Daniel Canogar, artist with an international projection and the biologist Sarah Teichmann.
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