Reception: Shared.Futures: Windows into the Future

Shared.Futures: Windows into the Future
On view: August 7 – September 13
Reception & artist panels: Saturday, August 23, 4:30pm – 6:30pm

Shared.Futures is an ArtScience collaborative, bringing together local scientists and artists to co-create work that imagines possible futures based in ongoing scientific research. This collaborative was formed in 2022 under an NSF- funded grant called the Intermountain West Transformation Network (Award # 2115169), which supports the growth of the Shared.Futures program, participants, and its organizers. The 2022 inaugural event held at the Explora Children’s Science Museum marked the beginning of a collaborative effort towards bringing to life an annual exhibition of interactive ArtScience with Explora partners. Since its inception, the program has evolved into an annual spring fellowship program that mentors five pairs of Artists and Scientists teams through a four-to-five-month workshop. During this transformative experience, participants are guided to collaborate and learn across disciplinary boundaries, fostering the creation of work that envisions pathways toward more sustainable and resilient futures.

This exhibition showcases the final work that has emerged from the Shared.Futures program (2022-2025) and celebrates the hard work from the organizing team who work diligently from behind the scenes to bring each event to life. Each piece in this collection can be seen as its own window looking into the future, giving us glimpses of possible pathways moving forward through an ArtScience lens. Alongside this, the exhibit presents a documentary series of interviews which present the process behind the work created by the participating teams. Then a time capsule for each year is carefully curated to showcase the program’s growth and key milestones that brought each event to life.