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New State Public Art Project Marries Art with Science
Slides by Nori Sato
A
new public art project now on display at the Iowa State Laboratory Facilities
Building in Ankeny brings together the beauty of art with the intricacies of science.
Created by Seattle artist Norie Sato, Slides consists of a series of painted and sandblasted sliding glass panels that are reminiscent of the glass slides used with specimens for microscopes.
Each
section includes five layers: a “base” layer which is stationary and
includes an image of an Iowan landscape near the facility. The four “slides”
or sliding glass panels in front of each landscape have images based on the work
of each of the four labs housed in the facility—Iowa Dept. of Agriculture
and Land Stewardship, State Medical Examiner, University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory
and Neonatal Screening, and the Division of Criminal Investigation Crime Laboratory.
The artwork is influenced by the connection people who work in the facility have to Iowa, and the inspiration of the Iowa landscape itself, juxtaposed with the technology and images of the work of the laboratories.
Slides was commissioned for this laboratory in accordance with Iowa’s
Art
in State Buildings Program, established in 1979 to provide for the inclusion
of fine art projects in state buildings.
