The Tamarind Institute, a part of the University of New Mexico College of Fine Arts, will be hosting a three-day-long series of talks featuring a variety of speakers. The Wonder Cabinet will begin Friday and end Sunday.
This inaugural Wonder Cabinet series will give presenters the opportunity to speak about art and science and how the two are interdependent, according to Shelly Smith, the marketing and development director at the Tamarind Institute.
The Wonder Cabinet, which will feature over 15 speakers, was made possible by the Frederick Hammersley Foundation and will be free and open to the public, Smith said.
Art and science are inseparable, and attendees will have the opportunity to learn about both, she said.
Lawrence Weschler, the Wonder Cabinet curator, said people are intrinsically interested in art and science. He will be speaking Friday evening about art and science as parallel and divergent ways of knowing.
“The trailblazers working at the edges of all disciplines keep seeming to encounter each other, have plenty of things to say to each other and those are the sorts of people we are convening for this Cabinet weekend,” he said.
The team from Metabolic Studio in LA that created the Liminal Camera out of a shipping container will be speaking about the camera, Weschler said.
The Liminal Camera is “a giant moveable camera...that visitors may enter to see the image of the world turned upside-down,” according to the Tamarind Institute website.
Another panel at the event will discuss the impact of big data on real world problems, Weschler said. Additionally a telescopic expert will speak about the imagery obtained through space probes.
These are just some of the speakers, he said.
Tamarind Institute Director Diana Gaston said all projects at the institute are a collaborative effort bringing together many different ideas.
The Wonder Cabinet recontextualizes the work of artists that visit the institute. This idea stemmed from Matthew Shlian’s many years of work at the institute that bridges the gap between art and science, Gaston said.
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“I hope the attendees gain a better understanding of how artists work and how closely aligned the arts and sciences really are. I want them to be inspired by the ideas and imagery that they experience during the Wonder Cabinet. And I want them to discover Tamarind Institute and the caliber of the collaborations and projects that we bring to the University community,” Gaston said.
Megan Holmen is a freelance reporter for news and culture at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com, culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @megan_holmen.
