Mathemalchemy

January 24, 2022 - June 12, 2022

NAS Building, 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W., Upstairs Gallery

Free. Photo ID and proof of up-to-date COVID-19 vaccination are required. Masks are optional.

Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays; closed weekends and holidays. No reservations required.

Join us on Sunday, June 12 for a Family Day and a Gallery Talk and Closing Reception.

Mathemalchemy is a collaborative art installation conceived as the brainchild of mathematician and NAS and NAE member Ingrid Daubechies and fiber artist Dominique Ehrmann, and driven by the energy and enthusiasm of 24 mathematical artists and artistic mathematicians. The installation celebrates the creativity and beauty of mathematics.

Developed by Daubechies and Ehrmann as a series of workshops in fall 2019, they presented the project in the Math & Art Special Session at the Jan. 2020 Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) in Denver, Colorado. To their delight, 14 talented mathematicians/artists signed up and suggested others not at the JMM, who also joined enthusiastically, completing the group. After more than a year of meeting only remotely because of the COVID pandemic and fabricating components in their separate locations, the contributors met in the summer of 2021, all duly vaccinated, and assembled the components of the installation.

The artists and mathematicians work in fabric, yarn and string, metal, glass, paper, ceramics, wood, printed plastic, and light; and depict or employ mathematical concepts such as symmetry, topology, optimization, tessellations, fractals, hyperbolic plane, and stereographic projection. Playful constructs include a flurry of Koch snowflakes, Riemann basalt cliffs and Lebesgue terraces. Additionally, the exhibition pays homage to mathematicians and mathematical ideas from many different origins and backgrounds, ranging from amateur mathematician Marjorie Rice to Fields Medalist and NAS member Maryam Mirzakhani.

For more information about the exhibition, visit https://mathemalchemy.org/.