Foregrounding Backgrounds: How Scientists Conceive Art to Express the Invisible

Scientist-artist collaborations have become a high-profile form of science communication as scientists seek creative ways to connect with publics. This qualitative case study examines one such collaboration from the perspective of scientist and artist participants’ experiences with the purpose and meaning of art. To do so, we draw on John Dewey’s concept of art as experience and Nigel Thrift and other nonrepresentational theorists’ emphasis on overlooked backgrounds that suffuse daily life. We find that sci-art creators see inherent beauty in research, seek to foreground their underappreciated objects of study, and harbor mostly instrumental goals for educating publics through their artwork.