Reflections for Exhibition Catalog--COMMENT HERE

What about something like "Symbiotic Space"?

A plethora of good options...

Just to play off of Kristen's suggestion, maybe "Culturing a Community: A Symbiosis of Art and Science" … though that could be too long.

Anyways, I feel really thrilled, proud and grateful for how this class and our collaboration with CCW has evolved and continues to grow. I think over the course of my time at Haverford I have started reaching towards disability as this perspective that really complicates and stretches my worldview, in the best way possible. The experiences of this semester have helped turn that reaching into a solid connection by giving me a framework and a confidence with which to further explore what excites me about disability studies, and to convey my interest to others working with totally different interests in totally different fields. I have especially appreciated thinking about science and medicine through the lens of disability studies, both through the CCW collaboration and also through the readings and my midterm project. Science often appears very rigid and formulaic, filled with protocols and lab reports, but working with the artists from CCW and everyone in our class (science and non-science) has brought out the very creative and organic nature that science relies on as well. In the lab, I had very uncomfortable moments when I worried that our project was straying too far from the conventions (sterile technique, trying not to poke through the agar, using too much ethanol) of science and that we were going to end up with empty petri dishes. BUT, that obviously did not happen and I think what did happen is in pushing those boundaries of what I have come to expect in the lab we ended up with some really remarkable, beautiful, gross, interesting and totally unexpected results. 

 I think it's important to also note how my theoretical conceptions of the collaboration with CCW have evolved from the early planning stages last May to our actual experiences this semester. As we've mentioned before, Lindsey and I started thinking about the project in terms of experts - us as experts in science, the artists as experts in art. It was really important to us that everyone involved had a stake in the project and that we fostered feelings of mutual respect and originally the idea of being and expert and sharing your knowledge felt like a good way to start accomplishing that. However, as our role as "experts" in the lab has been challenged and complicated by all the cool ways we have pushed against those scientific boundaries, my thinking has changed. I may feel confident in a certain way of doing science, but I'm certainly not an expert - the idea of being an expert almost implies you have nothing left to learn. I think instead I've come to really grab onto the idea of fostering mutual respect through the idea of holding a space for someone. I feel like everyone involved in this collaboration has done such a great job in offering a space to each other, whether through words or gestures or silence, and that has made all the difference. 

First: I really like something with "Culturing a Community."

Reflection:
I really like this quote by Siebers-
 "It is often the presence of disability that allows the beauty of an artwork to endure over time" -Siebers
I've learned and come to understand disability more through class discussions and my time with the CCW artists. When the CCW artists were at Haverford in the labs they were so willing to learn. It just made myself question to myself, "Why wouldn't they want to learn." I just feel that there should be more learning opportunities for people like CCW artists. I was also uncomfortable in the Bio labs when they started puncturing the agar plates...I mean that's not what your supposed to do. It amazes me how much I have constricted myself to the rules/regulations and "normality" over my life time. 
My first time doing art at CCW I was honestly so scared of what people would think of my art. The "beauty" of my art, and how my art would appear to other people. On the opposite end of the spectrum were the CCW artists. Obviously they are professional artists, but they justs seem so free. Similar to what Siebers says about Judith Scott's work. I think what makes the artwork of the CCW participants so amazing is the freedom both to make art from what they do and "change the meaning of objects by inserting them into differnet contexts."

Title Selection:

I really like the title Sarah proposed. 

Reflection:

Working at CCW teaches me how to listen.

As someone who has difficulty multitasking, I tend to “hyperfocus” on the task at hand, as the world completely vanishes from my view. So holding a conversation while working on embroidery turns out to be extremely hard for me in the first few weeks, especially since I had difficulty understanding some of the participants to begin with. Therefore, for most of the time, I was very quiet.

However, when I did make a conscious effort to stop myself from working and just talk to people for a period of time, I realize that understanding them is actually very easy. As I focused on their words the same way I would focus on working, meanings started to register and I found myself automatically knowing what to say in response without any effort. Conversations have never been this easy for me.

I think the conversations are easy because both the story-teller and the listener are genuine: the person from CCW really wants to tell me his/her story, and I am curious about his/her life and wants to learn about it. Perhaps this is what conversions should be. Perhaps simple words can clearly convey meanings if both conversationalists really want to get the messages across.

The key that I learn is willingness, the willingness to listen and the willingness to explain. Such willingness in turn depends on belief, the belief that the speaker actually has something valuable to offer and the belief that the listener actually cares about the topic enough to fully concentrate on the words.

I suspect that I had difficulty with conversations in the beginning not only because of multitasking or my accent or people’s enunciation, but also because I tried to half-mindedly listen the way I usually do when people talk to me about things that I didn’t care about, which kills conversations since the connection between the speaker and the listener is broken. Though I learned about concept of disability gain from reading and class, I must have carried with me the belief that they didn’t have much to offer and have seen talking to them as an act to perform rather than a mutually beneficial exchange. Perhaps this realization is the value of experiential learning. This realization enables me to change how I listen, which allows me to begin to see the world from the speaker’s perspective.

Working at CCW gives my world additional dimensions. (R -> R^n -> other worlds? J)

Sentence:

We expand the dimensions of our worlds through conversations as we believe in the value of others. 

I really like "harmonious silence" also and feel like that is really powerful language to describe this project... maybe not in the title because all of the culturing community and symbiosis ideas are also awesome, but in a description or something maybe we can include ideas of "harmonious silence".   

Long Reflection:  

            Working with the artists at Center for Creative Works has, by far, been the highlight of my semester and has taught me so much about myself, about teaching and communicating science, and about art.  When we started this project, the framework was really based upon the ideas of “experts” and “learners”.  At Haverford, Haverford/ Bryn Mawr students would be the “experts”, and at CCW, CCW artists would be the “experts”.  Initially, this felt like a really important distinction within our project to create mutual respect and roles for both CCW participants and HC students, but as time went on a more natural and organic relationship developed beyond these roles.  The CCW artists and non-sciencey HC/BMC students were fabulously disruptive in the lab, and the bacterial art was way more wonderful than I could have ever imagined.  They didn’t have the boundaries that I have as a science student who has learned conventional bacterial plating and culturing techniques. On my own plates I carefully drew and traced designs with the bacteria because that felt comfortable to me.  However, on the day of the bioart plate reveal, I was so amazed by the broken agar and contamination on other people’s plates.  While it was sometimes uncomfortable to see how non-scientists interacted with the agar and bacteria in unconventional ways, and I spent a lot of time worrying that no bacteria would grow, disrupting the conventions of microbiology techniques lead to really beautiful art pieces.  The “disruptive” nature of the project- whether it was breaking the conventions of scientific techniques in the lab, or scavenging for different supplies in the studio, or eating jello on salad in the dining center- was crucial to the sorts of relationships and community that formed.  I’ve learned so much from the CCW artists, and I value the progress that we have made going from the “experts” and “learners” language to more fluid relationships and spaces where everyone is valued for what they bring to the table.  

Short reflection:

The “disruptive” nature of the project- whether it was breaking the conventions of scientific techniques in the lab, or scavenging for different supplies in the studio, or eating jello on salad in the dining center- was crucial to the sorts of relationships and community that formed.