The Complexity Science Hub Vienna is hosting an autophagy-based art exhibition that shows the artwork by Ayelen Valko and Dorotea Fracchiolla, two artists who are also scientists engaged in autophagy research. This exhibition, called "Autophagic landscapes: on the paradox of survival through self-degradation"-which will be open to the general public from January to May 2023-proposes a visual journey from entire organisms toward the interior of a single cell. The core ideas represented in the exhibited artworks are the molecular mechanisms and vesicular dynamics of autophagy-two phenomena that have been feeding the imagination of the two artists, inspiring the creation of art that depicts intriguing subcellular landscapes. Although the microscale bears very valuable aesthetic features, it is not a common subject in art. Correcting this is the main aim of this exhibition and of the two artists.
Keywords: Autophagy; art; exhibition; science communication; visual journey.