NEA Collaboration
Arts and Science
NEA-Creative Pinellas Beyond Placemaking Grant Project 2024
Scientists and artists share a passion for exploration and discovery.
This project sparks inclusive collaboration between Creative Clay‘s neurodivergent and physically challenged artists and USF St Petersburg’s marine scientists, sharing my experience of working with both groups to explore creative possibilities.
Creative Clay member artists Chris Coyle and Tina Eschner test the surprisingly heavy weight of a model sea turtle during a College of Marine Science visit to Creative Clay
USFSP’s College of Marine Science (CMS) and the Breitbart Lab work on crucial issues affecting everyone who lives in or visits Pinellas – including red tide, coral death and rising sea levels.
Mya Breitbart welcomes Creative Clay member artists and teaching artists to the College of Marine Science research labs, where artists get the chance to explore microscopic sea life – and origami sea creatures that Mya has been making
With many thanks to Distinguished University Professor of Biological Oceanography Mya Breitbart, Lab Manager and Outreach Coordinator Makenzie Kerr and Faculty Director of Education & Outreach and Biological Oceanographer Teresa Greely, this project welcomes scientists as creative collaborators and research material as art – inviting marine researchers to share their work with Creative Clay and collaborate on visual, literary and performing arts that bring to life the crucial work the CMS is doing to protect our coastal ecosystems, including a range of visual arts, dance, collaborative poetry and a children’s story.
Bedtime Story for Kids of All Abilities
Imagination Ocean is a new work in our series of Sparks Creative Stories – free illustrated audiobooks for kids of all abilities in English, Spanish and ASL, written by me and illustrated by Creative Clay.
Accessible audio versions of Imagination Ocean are also available, in English+Spanish and in Spanish+English – plus this beautiful new ASL re-telling of the story.
Collaborative Poetry
We’ll create two collaborative poems that share the words and ideas of Creative Clay’s artists, guided by poet Sara Ries Dziekonski.
Poet Sara Ries Dziekonski brings her notebook to Creative Clay, to write down everyone’s ideas.
You can read the collaborative marine science poem
“What Shines Beneath”
translated by Dora Arreola
You can experience the collaborative “Plankton Poem” performed as a bilingual work by poets Sara Ries Dziekonski and Letisia Cruz, illustrated with images from the USF College of Marine Science and sound design by Matt Cowley, using marine researchers’ favorite laboratory sounds
you can read the text
translated by Dora Arreola
Inclusive Performance Videos
We’ll create two inclusive performances inspired by the movement of Pinellas sea and shore life, devised in collaboration with CMS researchers by choreographers Helen Hansen French and Fernando Chonqui – working with an inclusive dance ensemble. Spanish translator and theatre artist Dora Arreola is creating our translations, with ASL interpreting by Carol Downing.
USF marine scientists brought shells and live marine creatures for Creative Clay’s artists to touch and draw
What Shines Beneath’s sound design includes. . .
Compositions by USF anthropologist Dr. Heather O’Leary’s data sonification team of instrumental music based on CMS data on red tide and coral reef tract findings
Underwater recordings by CMS graduate student Tiffany Raetzel
Field recordings of CMS researchers’ favorite laboratory sounds, created in collaboration with Lab Manager and Outreach Coordinator Makenzie Kerr
Creative Clay artists also improvised music with teaching artist Ashton Sanchez, to evoke imagined sounds of marine life.
Our second inclusive performance work was reimagined after two hurricanes flooded Creative Clay’s studio and our lead choreographer’s home, and extensive power outages at the College of Marine Science caused them to lose years of research samples.
As a joyful and much-needed spark, we’ll be filming an inclusive Plankton Dance Flash Mob on the USFSP campus in December, with a large ensemble of artists and scientists laughing together as we all learn choreographer Fernando Chonqui’s “Plankton Dance,” set to a brand new Plankton Tune by the terrific band La Lucha.
Biological Oceanographer Maggie Mars Brisbin shows Creative Clay artists microscopic sea life in Tampa Bay, during their visit to the Knight Oceanographic Research Center
Devin Rice and Matthew Mayes are filming these performance works on USFSP’s campus, with stills photography by Ned Averill-Snell.
A jellyfish prop made by Creative Clay for our performances
Videos will have captions, and descriptive audio by actor Mimi Rice.
Spanish translations are by Dora Arreola of the USF School of Theatre and Dance.
Dance rehearsals at Creative Clay with choreographer Helen French
Visual Arts
Creative Clay’s member artists will create a range of visual arts inspired by their visit to the College of Marine Science labs and by CMS researchers visiting Creative Clay – as Dr. Mya Breitbart describes it, injecting science into an arts space and arts into a science facility.
Creative Clay member artist Marquise Russ at the Knight Oceanographic Research Center
Creative Clay created 7-10 paintings to present to the College of Marine Science to bring visual art to USFSP and the CMS facility. Sadly, they lost more than 40 paintings during flooding from the recent Hurricane Milton, including all the NEA works. The videos of Imagination Ocean are a record of those lovely artworks, using photos taken before their destruction.
Field Trip to the Knight Oceanographic Research Center
Creative Clay will work on digital images, adding color to CMS photographs of microscopic phytoplankton, bacteria and viruses – exploring the historic technique of hand-coloring black and white photographs.
Artists also repurposed local fish to explore the techniques of Japanese gyotaku printing, and create fish prints on researchers’ shirts and lab coats.
The gyotaku technique sparks connections between Creative Clay and their sister organization in Takamatsu, Japan.
Lab Manager and Outreach Coordinator Makenzie Kerr led the fish printing workshop, and shares one of the lovely lab coats heading to the Knight Oceanographic Research Center
Sharing and Democratizing Science
This collaboration gives College of Marine Science researchers the chance to experience their own work in a new way, by seeing how artists interpret and are inspired by their stories – and how the images and sound that they’re collecting can be welcomed as art.
This project welcomes Pinellas residents and visitors who are often left out of location-based placemaking and arts projects.
– people with mobility and transportation challenges
– residents and visitors who are Deaf or with hearing impairments
– residents and visitors who are Blind or with visual impairments
– Spanish-speaking families
– and individuals and families too busy to fight cross-county traffic to attend in-person arts experiences.
By using all the arts to share the crucial work the CMS is doing, we’ll communicate the vital issues that affect our local shores – and the beauty of its living creatures, even microscopic.
Choreographers Helen French and Fernando Chonqui, and ASL interpreter Carol Downing visit the CMS labs to study the movement of microscopic sea life, as inspiration for both choreography and signing
With artists assisting, the CMS can achieve their aim of democratizing access to science – and we can tell stories that create empathy, interest and connection that help residents and viewers of all ages and abilities care about the future of the Pinellas coast.
Produced with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Pinellas, the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners and the State of Florida.