Amid sculptures and pieces of modern art, there is a small room in the Noyes Cultural Arts Center displaying a different type of art – a kind captured at a microscopic level.
Scientists and Evanston community members celebrated the winners of the second annual Northwestern Scientific Images Contest at the center Sunday.
The competition was organized by NU’s Science in Society program. This year’s winner was McCormick graduate student Andrew Koltonow, whose microscopic image of solar cell particles was taken while he was working on a project.
“It’s really the nanostructure that won it,” Koltonow said. “I wouldn’t call myself a photographer. The subject made it really easy.”
The picture featured a large orange crystal structure surrounded with rainbow-colored ribbons. Koltonow said he captured the image while studying how to make solar cells cheaper and easier to produce.
“We really value sharing our work with the community,” he said. “You might think we only need to share it with scientists, but if we can engage the community and drum up interest, then it’s good for the science community as a whole.”
Science in Society, an NU program that works to make science more accessible, began the contest as a way to showcase the beauty of science.
“A lot of times in the course of research, you’ll end up with images that are really gorgeous,” said Beth Herbert, the contest administrator and assistant director at Science in Society. “It’s a side of science that I think a lot of people don’t think about.”
The top five images from this and last year’s contest are currently on display at the Noyes Cultural Arts Center. The exhibit will later move to the Evanston Public Library and eventually go on display at Navy Pier in Chicago, according to Michael Kennedy, director of Science in Society.
“Our goal was to make accessible to the public the research going on at Northwestern,” Kennedy said. “We’ve gotten amazing feedback, not only about the images themselves, but about the science behind it.”
Herbert said more than 80 people applied to the competition this year. The images are judged by a diverse panel consisting of scientists, artists and teachers. The judges consider composition, originality and aesthetics when choosing the best images. The top five images receive a cash prize, ranging from $50 for fifth place to $250 for first.
NU art Prof. Jeanne Dunning said there are more connections between scientists and artists than most people would think.
“We think in an experimental way,” Dunning said. “Artists are often motivated by having an idea and wanting to know what will happen if they try and do it – and of course scientists think that way too.”
She said scientists and artists are also similar because they both use equipment and materials to do their jobs.
“There’s this relationship between your thinking and a kind of practice that involves materials and physical things that they both have in common,” she said. “There are these ways in which scientists and artists are more of like minds than people give them credit for.”
Louise Vick, a local sculptor for the cultural center for the last 35 years, said the images impressed her.
“How these scientists come up with the coloring and the images they get was incredible,” Vick said. “It’s wonderfully unique to have that kind of vision within the science.”
