Saul Byrne and Ruby Murray help launch the nanoscience outdoor art exhibition
With Ireland’s national awareness week around nanoscience and materials science kicking off this Friday, an art exhibition with a twist will be taking place at locations around the country to give the public a visual taste of what nanoscience is all about.
The NanoArt exhibition will be on display on the grounds of Trinity College Dublin (TCD), the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork, and the foyer of Tyndall National Institute in Cork.
The multi-location exhibition will feature more than 100 images taken from nanoscience research that is happening at Tyndall, as well as the CRANN institute in Dublin and the Materials & Surface Science Institute at University of Limerick.
The goal of the exhibition is to give the public a taste of the scale at which nanoscience research is carried out. Images will also be on display at pubs and cafes in Dublin and Cork.
Some of the images from CRANN, for instance, can be viewed during a NanoArt pub trail around Dublin.
“We wanted to develop a series of exhibitions that act as conversation starters about nanoscience,” explained Prof John Boland, director of CRANN. “It’s only when people start discussing science that it becomes a real option for study and work, and its potential impact can truly take off.”
As for Nanoweek, NanoNet Ireland, the national network representing nanoscience across academia and industry, is behind the initiative, which will run from Friday (14 June) until 21 June.
As part of this, the European nanoscience meeting, the EuroNanoForum, will be taking place in Dublin at the Convention Centre.
The two-day event is expected to attract more than 1,200 international delegates and 120 speakers who will be focusing on the impact of nanoscience research to create new technologies.
There will also be a Magical Materials exhibition at the Convention Centre on Thursday, 20 June, to showcase materials such as graphene, a layer of graphite just one atom thick but 200 times stronger than steel, and aerogel – apparently the world’s lightest solid material.
