Center for Chemical Evolution’s Call for Project Grants in the Arts

For Immediate Release: January 5, 2011

Program Contact: Center for Chemical Evolution, Meisa Salaita, meisa.salaita@emory.edu, 404-727-8953; Media Contact: Emory College Center for Creativity & Arts, Jessica Cook, jessica.l.cook@emory.edu, 404-727-1687

Center for Chemical Evolution’s Call for Project Grants in the Arts

Funding for Art-Science Collaborations

ATLANTA—The Center for Chemical Evolution (CCE) invites visual, literary and performing artists and filmmakers to collaborate with CCE scientists to create works of art that explore the origins of life chemistry. Along with support from the Center for Creativity & Arts at Emory University (CCA), the CCE will provide seed funds (up to $3,000) to help artists develop ideas that can bring the cutting-edge research of the CCE to the public.  Beginning in the fall of 2011 and extending into 2015, artists may apply for larger grants to further develop their ideas.  Deadline for submission of proposals for seed funds is February 1, 2011, 4 p.m. EST. The grant application and guidelines are available at www.centerforchemicalevolution.com/node/50

Funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA, the CCE is a multi-institutional research effort to study the chemical origins of life. The CCE scientists are at the forefront of demonstrating that small molecules present in the early earth and its atmosphere reacted with one another and self assembled to form larger molecules that resemble biology’s macromolecules. A central mission of the Center is to carry this research beyond the laboratory and into the public; the CCE seeks artists interested in exploring this topic in creative and insightful ways that will help teach the greater community about the origins of life.