The Museum and Field Stations facility at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) is hosting a one-of a kind exhibition that explores the intersections of science, art and design.

The seeds of this exhibition were sown during the Open Science Day in November 2018, an annual outreach event that the Bangalore Life Sciences Cluster (BLiSC)[1] hosts on-campus. Ten of these exhibits were selected by a trans-disciplinary jury and are now being curated in a two-part exhibition called, “Lab culture”. The exhibits will be on display at the Gallery space in the inStem building on BLiSC campus. 

Following the successful opening  on 18^th of June, Lab culture I concluded on the 16^th of August. A successful outreach program in collaboration with the BLiSC communication office ensured that the exhibition hosted more than 800 school children from in and around Bangalore. Lab culture II opens at 6 PM on the 14^th of September. The exhibition is being curated by Ishita Shah, designer and historian, with support from architect,designer, Sai Netra Ajjampur , installation artist Shashank Satish and visual artist Navin Kumar. All the content has been developed in collaboration with labs at the Cluster.

Curatorial Note

" The Museum & Field Stations Facility (MFS), NCBS at the Bangalore Life Science Cluster (BLiSc), brings to you the second exhibition of the Lab Culture series: tracing the making of a collective. Lab Culture, a two-part exhibition series has brought diverse practitioners together from arts, science, design, and history to interpret and disseminate the relationship between these spheres.

‘Mirroring’ the processes from the first exhibition, the curatorial notes of Lab Culture II attempt to delve deeper into the journey of making a collectivist culture. Envisaged to tell stories of science, Lab Culture I presented a symphony of ideas and explorations, distinguishing one laboratory’s work culture from another. Thus, the scientific exhibits and creative representations displayed then, made a remark about the culture of an art-science collaborative in more individualistic ways.

Following that, the interpretative search for Lab Culture II has been inspired from specific studies about cell and neuro biology, introduced by the participating labs from NCBS and inStem. Starting from the mere existence of a single cell or a neuron, to the growth of a systemic structure, newer processes are discovered and adapted. Situations are quite similar, when an institution grows. This exhibition will thus, trace values like scalability, modularity and flexibility across time, space, and philosophy, to represent their effects on a living ecosystem." - Ishita Shah, Curator

 
The gallery of the facility is envisioned as an interactive space, showcasing science in all its fascinating complexity. It provides opportunities for students and the public to interact with scientists and learn about their latest discoveries through various interactive displays. The exhibition also facilitates educational activities for larger audiences, especially student groups. This is a major interface where the BLiSC interacts with the larger society that supports our research and gains from its findings.