The “found-art vacuole”—people learn in different ways

ABSTRACT

Based on my reading, and on my own experience, I have come to realize that people learn in different ways, and this can include the use of different media. This is one reason I have worked with various artists to portray the topic of autophagy through paintings, music and dance. Indeed, comments from members of the audience who have attended one of my seminars often suggest that a particular artistic approach ‘hit home’ and added meaning to them about the topic. In this issue of the journal I describe another such project—‘the-found-art vacuole’—that utilized the talents of an amazing watercolor painter, Scott Hartley. The object of Scott’s painting is the only artophagy composition that I have ‘made’—assembled is a more accurate word. Doing so was quite fun, but after examining many of the ‘antique’ items that form the ‘found-art vacuole’, I realized that it would be nice to have a painting that was done in exquisite detail. The requirement for detail immediately made me think of Scott, whose work I was familiar with from the Ann Arbor Art Fair. To quote a line from the Belleville News-Democrat describing Scott’s taking first place in an art competition, ‘He began by doing landscapes, and eventually found a different style for his work: the intricacies of urban architecture, of alleys and fire escapes in a city neighborhood.’ This does describe the nature of Scott’s work, but you have to see these paintings to appreciate the detail.

KEYWORDS:

• Art
• autophagy
• learning
• sculpture
• stress
• vacuole

One of my claims about these art-science collaborations is that they help people learn the subject matter; although I cannot anticipate which type of art will necessarily appeal to or aid which person. However, I will take this opportunity to describe one experience with the ‘found-art vacuole’ that justified this assumption. After having worked with the composer Wendy Wan Ki Lee on the project ‘Macromusophagy’ [1] I decided the next logical step was to try dance (https://engaged.umich.edu/news-features/the-science-of-autophagy/). Accordingly, I contacted Peter Sparling, a Professor of Theater and Dance at the University of Michigan, and a former member (actually principal dancer) with the Martha Graham Dance Company.

Peter is extremely smart and imaginative. He seemed to immediately grasp the concept of autophagy and even a selective process such as mitophagy; one of his first questions to me was whether this was a fractal process, by which he was asking – I think – if the pattern was retained at larger scales. When I asked Peter for clarification he asked me whether autophagy is something that occurred on a community-wide scale. For example, would society use an autophagic process to eliminate an undesirable element, similar to the way a cell would eliminate a dysfunctional or-ganelle? I admit this is not a question I had ever contemplated, but this became the basis for one of Peter’s choreographed pieces featuring a ‘bag lady’ as the autophagic target (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm3h56x8Bwg). Peter also contemplated having the dance filmed underwater, to mimic the environment of a cell. In the end, he came up with a fantastic idea. The Life Sciences Institute is located next to the Alexander G. Ruthven Museums Building, which was built in 1928 and designed by Albert H. Kahn. The main entrance to the museum opens into a two-story rotunda. Peter’s idea was to perform the dance on the first floor of the rotunda, while projecting images designed by Dr. David Goodsell [2] from the second floor. The audience would line the railing on the second floor and look down onto the dancers as though they were observing them through a microscope. In my opinion, this was brilliant, and it worked quite well in practice (although we ended up having to also include seating on the first floor due to the demand for attendance at a very limited number of showings).

At any rate, my point is that Peter clearly understood auto-phagy, at least at some level. Nonetheless, I remember a meeting in my office that was held late in the process of designing the dance. Peter, David Goodsell, Wendy Lee and I were discussing what each of us needed to accomplish to put together the final piece. Note that this meeting took place almost a year after I first suggested the idea of the dance to Peter. Somehow, we got to talking about the various projects I had been involved in over the years, including those with Wendy and David. Then I mentioned the ‘found-art vacuole’ somewhat jokingly, because my effort in assembling it did not compare in any way with what David and Wendy had done. Peter turned to look at the piece as I described it; how the different kitchen utensils, which were used for cutting, chopping, slicing, mashing, etc., represented the vacuole, the end destination for the autophagosome in a yeast cell. Suddenly, Peter exclaimed something along the lines of, ‘Oh, autophagy is a degradative process!’ So, here is someone who is choreographing a dance about autophagy, who clearly understood it from a morphological point of view (I say ‘morphological’ because that is one way to think about the dancers – portraying the morphology of the process), but who had apparently not yet fully grasped the degradative aspect. However, seeing this representation of a vacuole, containing these kitchen implements, suddenly made it clear. I think that for Peter, who needs to think in at least three (actually four) dimensions for his choreography, seeing the three-dimensional ‘vacuole’ in person, and being able to relate to the concept of how these knives and other items are used, was critical in completing his understanding of autophagy.

Now, before I end this introduction to the story of the ‘found-art vacuole’, I must add one confession. Although I thought this was a great idea that would immediately make it clear to anyone what the vacuole was like (at least the degradative function), not one person from my lab interpreted this piece of art correctly. Of course there could be any number of explanations. For example, it is possible that they are too immersed in the topic, and already have an image – a different one – of the vacuole in their own minds. Another possibility is that they were essentially distracted from thinking about this too deeply, as they contemplated something along the lines of, ‘What bizarre thing has Dan created now?’ I have not explored this carefully, because I am not certain that I want to know the answer.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences [GM131919].