A new science art show premiers today online and runs until April 30th, 2021. Radha Chaddha, a Toronto-based visual artist, and cell and molecular biologist, has created a virtual exhibit that explores the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic as told through light and dance. With funding from the Government of Ontario, the piece is being presented at the Aga Khan Museum and is entitled IAM: Dance of the Molecules. For those readers who may not be aware, regenerative medicine harnesses the power of stem cells, biomaterials and molecules – the building blocks of all things.
“The intention of IAM: Dance of the Molecules is to bring us out of the realm of fearfulness and into the realm of curiosity,” says Chaddah. “IAM symbolizes the interconnectedness of nature, and the fallacy that humans can live outside of it, or control it. The pandemic reminds us that we are but a thread in the interwoven fabric of nature, a small part of a much larger evolutionary narrative.”
According to the Aga Khan Museum, IAM consists of four acts “set in a sequentially larger scale of material reality, starting with the molecular, then moving into the human, the global, and finally the universal.” The next three instalments will be posted to the Museum’s website as they become available, with the final act, Cosmos, expected by December 2022. When it is safe to do so, all four acts of IAM will be presented together as a 50-minute live outdoor performance. Something to look forward to.
How does IAM fit with the Museum’s programming? “IAM’s themes of adaptation and resilience speak to the Museum’s mission of connecting diverse people and cultures through the arts,” says Amirali Alibhai, Head of Performing Arts. “With IAM Dance of the Molecules, Radha and her team have found exciting new ways of presenting artistic stories about humanity’s relationship with its environment. Though their approach to understanding COVID-19 is refreshing and unique, it is a comforting reminder of how people, throughout history and across cultures, have responded to crisis with remarkable creativity and resilience, opening up new windows of possibility along the way.”
The use of the word iam, which means “now” or “already” in Latin, suggests that the art piece is grounded in the present – as does its COVID subject matter. According to the Museum, the series will focus on the “molecular, human, planetary and universal in the same temporal space. By encouraging audiences to consider their connection to invisible material realities, this project shines light on how humanity has been co-evolving with viruses for millennia. IAM: Dance of the Molecules is a radiant representation of what happens on the microscopic level when the novel coronavirus is transmitted from one person to another.”
Chaddah’s collaborators are choreographer Allie Blumas, executive producer Jaclyn Blumas, composer Dan Bédard and director of photography Henry Sansom. The five-minute video is free to watch here:
Stacey Johnson
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