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Pulling Back The Veil Exhibition reception

When
Where

York College Gallery, Room 1B01

The Dept. of Performing and Fine Arts in Collaboration with the Dept. of Biology Opens its Photography Exhibition, "Pulling Back The Veil: The Art Of Microscopy"

Pulling Back The Veil: The Art Of Microscopy

This is a collaborative exhibition  between  Departments of Fine Art and Biology, consisting of images created by York College students in Cell  Biology and Developmental Biology courses during the Spring and Fall Semesters of 2011 and 2012, under the tutelage of Assistant Professor Arne Christensen.

Professor Christensen, along with Adjunct Professor of Photography Sally Boon Matthews, also worked with several photography students from the Fine Arts Department over the summer of  2012 to create additional works.

In addition to being a scientific tool, microscopes can be used to produce  images that are as beautiful as they are informative. Taking photographic images via the microscope  was practiced almost as soon as the medium was introduced in 1839.

This collection consists of images produced via two types of microscopes, scanning electron and epifluorescence. The invisible is rendered visible through these processes, and the resultant, lovely images of human and animal cells, leaves, hair, and insects appear patterned and abstracted to the viewer's eye. Beautiful as they are, most of these photographs were created for science.

Can we call them art?

By creating and exhibiting these images, York College students are participating in a long-standing conversation between art and science about what constitutes the nature of a photographic image and how one defines art.  The exhibit opens Oct. 21st and runs until Dec. 4.   Please joing us for a reception on Nov. 13 at 6pm at the York College Gallery, Room 1B01.