PST ART: Art & Science Collide

A landmark regional event that explored the intersections of art and science, both past and present

Project Details

Sky, ocean and land with floating white particles and words in white "maay-ha"

Our Worlds (Kilma S. Lattin and Catherine Eng), maay-ha, 2024. Image from the extended reality work Indigenous Worlds Are All Around You, 2023. Maay-ha, (sky-ocean, cielo-océano) is Kumeyaay for Creator.

Photo © OurWorlds, Inc

About

Goal

PST ART: Art & Science Collide aimed to create opportunities for civic dialogue around some of the most urgent problems of our time by exploring past and present connections between art and science in a series of exhibitions, public programs, and other resources.

Supported by Getty grants to dozens of cultural organizations across Southern California, PST ART is the nation’s largest art event and occurs every five years. Each edition strives to create new research and engage audiences, and Art & Science Collide added a new goal to increase climate literacy within the PST ART community and help the museum field move towards more sustainable practices.

Outcomes

  • 67 deeply-researched exhibitions with a total attendance of 4 million visitors, representing more than a 40% increase over the last edition PST: LA/LA in 2017.

  • Increased programming of over 750 wide-ranging events on topics ranging from cosmology and Indigenous knowledge to climate change and science futurism

  • 40 illustrated catalogues documenting research behind the exhibitions

  • Expanded partnerships with the region’s leading scientific institutions (Caltech, the Natural History Museum, Griffith Observatory, Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Carnegie Observatories, and NASA’s JPL) and community-based organizations, including LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, LA Commons, Crenshaw Dairy Mart, and Lancaster Museum of Art and History in the Antelope Valley

  • A free, three-day Art & Science Family Festival in collaboration with Edinburgh Science that attracted 13,000 visitors

  • Six PST ART regional weekends featuring local vendors, special performances, and DJs with more than 10,000 participants at signature events

  • Closing PST ART Open House with capacity audience at the Wilshire Ebell

  • A K-12 education program in partnership with LA Promise Fund and Greater LA Education Fund that reached an estimated 90,000 teachers, students, and families through free visits and digital resources

  • A culminating student showcase at Getty that brought 500 teachers, students, and families to a celebration featuring artworks created by 450+ students

  • A higher education program featuring free online materials from 34 PST ART exhibitions

  • An independently produced documentary film about PST ART commissioned by PBS SoCal

  • The first PST ART Climate Impact Program with 69% of partners tracking their climate impact and 80% implementing waste reduction strategies

  • A comprehensive report for the Climate Impact Program featuring outcomes, benchmarks for the future, case studies, and the largest-ever dataset on the climate impact of exhibition-making

Project Details

Learn more about Art & Science

See all exhibitions and events

Visit the PST ART website

Resources