Simons Center Gallery Combines Science and Art to Reflect on 'Albedo'
In the sunlit halls of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, a crowd gathered to see “Flows of Reflectivity,” an art gallery exhibition curated by Patricia Maurides, professor of practice in the Department of Art, and Karina Yager, associate professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.
Conversations filled the room as visitors mulled over the gallery. Dusk blanketed the visitors who contemplated the photos of glacial landscapes and colorful sceneries.
“We want to share our commitment to protecting the natural environment with the power of photography for both artistic and scientific inquiry,” said Maurides at the exhibit’s opening reception on March 27. The curators emphasized the importance of bridging sciences with the arts to communicate important messages surrounding the changing climate. Light and reflectivity are central themes in this photo collection, specifically referencing the atmospheric phenomenon of albedo, a measure of how reflective a surface is.
“Albedo plays a role in the global climate by helping stabilize temperatures,” Yager said. “Glaciers are high in albedo; they have a high reflectivity. They reflect incoming solar radiation, helping the planet to cool, but greenhouse gasses are warming the planet, so there’s an imbalance.”
Yager has been able document Peru’s Cordillera Vilcanota mountain range from an impressive point of view on her expeditions in the Andes, where she researches the effects of climate change on high-altitude regions and communities. “We set up a camera at the glacier forefront and that way we can report the change over time. It’s so powerful visually… You can’t argue with a photograph,” Yager said. “Some of these were taken outside of a plane with the window open.”
Yager explained that glaciers play important roles in Andean Indigenous communities. “The glacier is also called Apu, which means deity for the Indigenous peoples. A lot of the glaciers are social beings. They’re deities who are protectors and providers,” she said.
“This was my first love: the bacteriophage lambda,” Maurides said, pointing at a picture of a magnified bacteria. With a background in biology and visual art, Maurides marries the two disciplines with her photographs. “I love the imagery that you find in biology through microscopy.”
The photographs in the exhibit explore light and reflectivity through optics. Her photograph titled “Blink” features a Montauk landscape with spherical scans of Maurides’ optic nerve.
Another photograph, “Alchemy of Light,” is also a study of reflectivity. “I work with a group of adults with neurodiversity… and I brought my optics to them and said, ‘Okay, I have some mylar, some reflective surfaces and prisms, let’s see what we can do,’” Maurides said, explaining which materials were used to create the composite image.
“The Simons Center is honored to celebrate the collaborative research of two Stony Brook professors. Patricia Maurides and Karina Yager’s work demonstrate the interconnectedness of art and science, the power of observation and perception, and the important role photography performs as a tool for both climatic documentation and reflective storytelling,” said Lorraine Walsh, art director and curator for the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, and professor of practice in the Department of Art.
The exhibition, along with other selected works, are on view in the Simons Center Gallery until June 20.
— Antonio Mochmann