Communicating science is an art! What do artists who work in an itinerant science museum say?

Abstract

The research presented in this article sought to investigate the visions and perceptions of artists involved in the context of a traveling science museum in respect to science communication, the role of artistic interventions that travel with this museum, and their participation in this dynamic. The Fiocruz Museum of Life stands out, having since its creation in 1999, conceived and offered its public educational activities that promote the dialogue between art and science. In a similar way, Mobile Science, the mobile unit of the Museum of Life, inaugurated a new season of itinerant activity in 2013 called "Art and Science on Wheels". This new configuration aimed to promote socio-artistic-cultural inclusion on its travels to cities in southeastern Brazil. Since then, there has been an expansion and diversification of the artistic interventions that travel with this mobile science museum. The research question that has been raised is: what views on science communication do these artists involved in the activities have? Furthermore, what would be the perceptions of theater, circus, and visual arts professionals about the role of arts in an itinerant context and their involvement and experiences in this process? For this, interviews were conducted with 09 (nine) artists involved in the artistic activities developed within the scope of Mobile Science, who were still actively traveling before the activities were suspended by the Covid-19 pandemic. For the analysis of the interviews, qualitative methodology was used, based on an intuitive process of immersion and crystallization (STEWARD; GAPP; HARWOOD, 2017). The results considered the dimensions previously presented and raised some of the potentialities and opportunities that this type of activity offers for this interface between the fields of the arts and science communication, even though challenges are recognized. The interviewees reflected on the goals pursued by scientific communication activities, from the most concrete to the most symbolic, on how art merges with this and broadens horizons, and on how they see themselves as participants in this work. At the end of the article, it is concluded that mobile science museums’ actions are presented as a fundamental social inclusion strategy for the scientific and cultural dissemination of Brazilian productions, allowing them to be accessible to populations that often do not have access to cultural facilities. By allowing broad access to culture in an interaction between art and science, itinerant projects reinforce their role in popularizing culture and knowledge. The interaction between art and science allows the planning of scientific communication activities that go beyond the deficit model, developing actions that support dialogue, criticism, and the perception of knowledge in not only cognitive, but also affective and emotive, ways