New Documentary Art & Science Collide Premieres Friday, October 17 on PBS

PBS SoCal, Southern California’s flagship PBS organization, announced today its new documentary, Art & Science Collide, which weaves together compelling stories of artists participating in the Getty’s 2024-2025 Southern California art event, PST ART.

Exploring the deep, often overlooked connections between two fields commonly seen as opposites—art and science—the film highlights collaborations between artists and scientists in Southern California to address some of humanity’s most urgent challenges, from climate change and space exploration to biodiversity and environmental justice. The program is produced for PBS by PBS SoCal, in association with Actual Films (Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore and Athlete A) and Academy Award-nominated filmmakers, Director Jessica Kingdon and Producer Serin Marshall. The one-hour special Art & Science Collide premieres Fri., Oct. 17 at 8pm on PBS SoCal and at 10pm ET/PT (check local listings) on PBS stations nationwide, PBS.org and the PBS App.

“Providing all Americans with free access to the arts is a cornerstone of our mission, now more than ever,” said Wendy Llinás, Senior Director, General Audience Programming & Development at PBS. “With Art & Science Collide, we aspire to ignite curiosity and creativity, strengthening the cultural health of our nation by bringing communities together through the rich exchange of science and arts education.”

The film showcases PST ART, the largest art project in the United States, which also serves as a revolutionary model for public programming at an unprecedented scale. Getty’s PST ART featured over 800 artists in mind-expanding explorations of the intersections of art and science, both past, present and future across Southern California. Topics ranged from ancient cosmology to Indigenous sci-fi, and from artificial intelligence to environmental justice. Other programs ranged from cutting-edge performing arts commissions to rocket launches and from participatory art projects and action-centered discussions to free outdoor art and science family festivals.

“I’m incredibly proud to help make the groundbreaking work of PST ART accessible to audiences nationwide,” said Katherine E. Fleming, President & CEO of The J. Paul Getty Trust. “PBS is one of the most powerful cultural platforms in the country, and this partnership offers an extraordinary opportunity to share the creativity, collaboration, and innovation in art and science that emerged from PST ART’s many Southern California institution partners with viewers everywhere.”

The documentary highlights a range of powerful collaborations. The five main artists profiled in the film include:

• American Artist reimagines the early days of rocket science through the lens of science fiction writer Octavia Butler. Their project, “The Monophobic Response,” includes a recreation of a 1936 rocket test, exploring themes of racial equity, climate crisis and alternate futures. It positions space exploration not as a corporate dream, but as a necessity for marginalized communities envisioning survival beyond Earth.
• Cannupa Hanska Luger introduces large scale figures wearing “sovereignty suits”—futuristic, cultural armor that blends Indigenous knowledge traditions with speculative technology. His sculptures act as time-travelers, carrying ancestral wisdom between multiple realities of space and time. He reframes survival as cultural continuity and critiques the dominant, colonial narratives of space travel.
• Special Species is an artist collective formed by Jason Chang, Joel Fernando, and Yesenia Prieto. They spotlight California’s special-status species through piñata-based representations. Drawing on Mexican folk traditions, they blend education, conservation and dreamlike imagery to raise awareness about biodiversity. Their work reclaims undervalued crafts and overlooked animal species as vital parts of our ecosystem.
• Environmental artist Lauren Bon recounts her long-term intervention in the L.A. River’s concrete infrastructure through her project “Bending the River.” Her work reveals the hidden flows beneath the city—both underground rivers and the buried histories of the floodplain—and demonstrates the regenerative potential of soil, water and native crops such as corn. Through these acts, Bon frames environmental healing and reparation as inseparable from art-led activism.
• Themes of permeability, memory and microbiota emerge in the work of Hayv Kahraman. A refugee from Iraq, she explores how bodies—especially migrant bodies—interact with their surroundings at microscopic and spiritual levels. Her meditative flax-based marbling reflects both trauma and resilience, asking what it means to dismantle borders and embrace interconnection.

Additional artists and experts appearing in the film include John Mulchaey, President, Carnegie Science; Joel Ferree, Program Director, LACMA Art + Technology Lab; Andrew Perchuk, Deputy Director, Getty Research Institute; Katherine Fleming, President and CEO, J. Paul Getty Trust; Ahmed Best, Actor, Director, Educator, and Futurist; Shana Nys Dambrot, Art Critic; Joan Weinstein, Director, Getty Foundation; Chris Weisbart, Associate Vice President, Exhibitions, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County; Debra Scacco, Curator, “Brackish Water” and Fiona Lindsay Shen, Director, Phyllis and Ross Escalette Permanent Art Collection.

As part of PBS SoCal’s efforts around PST ART, the organization produced 11 short films featuring some of Southern California’s top arts and culture destinations that included the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, California African American Museum, The Autry Museum of the American West and many more.

Other original content from PBS SoCal created around PST ART included the organization’s award-winning environmental series EARTH FOCUS episode titled “Fast Fashion,” featuring textile artist Porfirio Gutierrez as well as the Los Angeles Emmy® nominated documentary, ARTBOUND “Blended Worlds: The Fusion of Art & Science at JPL,” which showed how a passion to explore space informs art and vice versa. All of this content and more is available to stream on the free PBS app and PBS SoCal’s YouTube Channel.

“Our region is blessed to have so many wonderful arts institutions and we are so honored to highlight their work,” commented PBS SoCal Chief Content Officer Tamara Gould. “As Southern California’s convener for the arts, we are humbled by the sheer scale of creative collaboration, which will inspire the whole country through this film. This documentary showcases artists who are breaking new ground in exploring the unique intersection of art and science, which is a part of what makes Southern California such an iconic destination for arts and culture.”

"The documentary film Art & Science Collide underscores that both art and science are ways of knowing, imagining and shaping the world,” commented Oscar®-nominated Director Jessica Kingdon. “Ultimately, the film points to the ways creativity, knowledge and empathy are not separate pursuits, but intertwined forces that reveal our interdependence in a shared, complex world.”

Art & Science Collide will be available to stream on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS app, available on iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO.

Major funding for the documentary film Art & Science Collide was provided by John and Louise Bryson. Additional funding was provided by the Frieda Berlinski Foundation, the California Community Foundation and PBS.

The program is produced for PBS by PBS SoCal, in association with Actual Films, whose documentaries have won Emmys and Peabodys and an Academy Award nomination. Justine Nagan, Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk are Executive Producers along with PBS SoCal’s Tamara Gould and Angela Boisvert. The producer is Emmy Award-winning Serin Marshall, and the Academy Award-nominated director is Jessica Kingdon. Wendy Llinás is the executive in charge for PBS.

For more information, follow us on social at @pbssocal.