High school students compete to win NeuroArt Contest
On Friday, Jun 8, the Faculty of Fine Arts will hold the finals of the NeuroArt Contest, held by the University of Barcelona, with the Institute of Neurosciences and the support of the Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit. More than a hundred high school students will participate in it. They come from nine schools from around Catalonia, divided among twenty-four groups, who will get to the finals of this contest to present their artistic representation of the nervous system in front of a jury formed by researchers of the University of Barcelona, experts on neurosciences and art. There will be two prizes at the end of the day: one to the best group from 1st and 2nd year ESO students and another to the best group from 3rd and 4th year ESO students.
The twenty-four works that are bond to win are very diverse. Students have presented the acquired knowledge on the nervous system by using different materials, supports and techniques: from acrylic paintings to show the stimuli and responses the brain receives and sends, to an audiovisual piece showing the daily life of someone with an obsessive-compulsive disorder. There are sculptures made of recycled materials, wood and electronic elements, and there is even an audio with special effects.
During the morning, each group will explain the neuroscientific concept their work represents and will answer all the doubts the jury asks. The jury will assess both the artistic side and the scientific rigour of each presentation.
The day will include the workshop Ment i Moviment (mind and movement), and the presentation of La tempesta del cos by its author, Carla Giró, a painting that allegorizes the pain of an injury in the spinal cord and talks about the nervous system and the merge between nature and women.
All presented works, whether they are awarded or not, will remain exhibited at the Faculty of Fine Arts in an exhibition that will be available from June 11 to June 22, from Monday to Friday, from 12 noon to 2 p.m., and Mondays and Wednesdays from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. as well.
The end process that lasted all academic year
The contest aimed for the high school students to show, through artistic representations, their knowledge on the structure, functions and plasticity of the nervous systems. In the first stage, several researchers of the Institute of Neurosciences gave lectures in the participating centers so that the students could understand how the nervous system works and what its structure is like. After this session, each school, in groups of 6 people maximum, had to work on artistic representations of those concepts and, among the ideas that came up, had to choose a group to represent their classroom on Friday.