Six students from WVU and across the nation came to WVU for the Community Engagement in Science Through Art (CESTA) program, a collaboration among Assistant Professor Jessica Hoover (WVU Eberly College, Chemistry), Associate Professor Jason Lee (WVU CCA, Sculpture) and Assistant Professor Todd Hamrick (WVU Statler College, Engineering).
"CESTA gives its participants the unique opportunity to collaborate with others from very different viewpoints to create an original project. I don't know of anything else like it," said Professor Hamrick.
The students (2 chemists, 2 engineers, 2 artists) worked collaboratively for one month in June to design and construct an interactive science-art installation, "Object D4h" which they installed June 23, on the 2nd floor of Evansdale Library.
"Object D4h," a rotating, 6' x 3' x 6' metal and plastic sculpture, explores symmetry, and was designed to be an abstracted representation of a molecule synthesized by Professor Hoover's research group. A detailed background narrative on the website outlines the group's design and research process.
"It was a pleasure to work with these scientific artists and artistic scientists. I'm so glad we're hosting their amazing sculpture, D4h, at Evansdale Library, and that they've made such an excellent website to go with it at "cestasymmetry.wordpress.com," Creative Arts Librarian Beth Royall said.
The CESTA program is funded by Jessica Hoover's National Science Foundation CAREER award, as the outreach component of the research grant. The goals of the program are to engage the community in chemistry through art and to teach WVU science, engineering, and art students to work and communicate effectively across fields.
The exhibits are part of WVU Libraries' Art in the Libraries initiative. The sculpture will remain installed at Evansdale Library throughout the 2017-18 school year, until the next CESTA program in June, 2018.
See the work on view during Evansdale Library's summer hours: Monday-Thursday 8 a.m.-9 p.m., Fridays 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturdays 1-5 p.m. More on their project https://cestasymmetry.wordpress.com/about/ and CESTA: http://www.cestaprogram.com/.