Project MUSE: Museum sabbatical experience for faculty teaching at the arts-science interface

Although the Arts and the Sciences are often portrayed as distinct worldviews, these fields share a rich interface. The role of chemistry in the making, study, and protection of artwork fascinates audiences and lends itself to teaching scientific concepts to those who might not otherwise engage with science. Some chemistry faculty, facilitated by conservators and museum scientists, have developed “Chemistry of Art” courses that reach a diverse student body to teach chemical concepts through the vehicle of artworks.

The science laboratory at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (OMA) at Newfields offers an outreach program for scientists teaching at the Arts-Science interface. Project MUSE (MUseum Sabbatical Experience) provides free onsite housing for professors during a sabbatical or summer leave while they conduct arts-based scientific research and/or technical studies of artworks in the museum’s encyclopedic collections. Their experiences are then wrapped back into curricula, presented as papers or lectures, or are repackaged as online teaching modules for colleagues.

This poster highlights a decade of Project MUSE and its participant faculty, the Chemistry of Art courses that have resulted, and a program of science-based art exhibitions at the IMA called CSI: Conservation Science Indianapolis. This exhibition series has resulted in 4 small shows that use the mystery, discovery, clues, and evidence that are typically a part of conservation science investigations of artwork to teach science concepts to a broader population.

Project MUSE scholar Dr. Jeff Fieberg, physical chemistry professor at Centre College, analyzing pigments in Gauguin's Landscape Near Arles (44.10) at Newfields.