Open-Air exhibition:Children’s pictures on advertisement pillars in Bochum
“What happens in the brain when we are learning?” This is the question that pupils from primary schools in Bochum pursued in a painting competition. The result is 133 fantastic works of art that show how the children imagine their own memory. The pictures submitted can be seen from December 18 – December 31, 2020 in an open-air exhibition on advertisement pillars in the city centre of Bochum.
The painting competition was announced by the International Graduate School of Neuroscience (IGSN) and the neuroscientific Collaborative Research Center 874 (SFB 874) at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB).
We have been organizing these painting competitions on topics from brain research for more than 12 years now and are always thrilled to see how well children can deal with these complex topics through art
Prof. Dr. Denise Manahan-Vaughan, director of the International Graduate School of Neuroscience and speaker for SFB 874
Usually the results of the painting competition are presented in an exhibition in the university library of Ruhr-Universität Bochum. This is not possible this year due to the contact restrictions because of the corona pandemic. “It is important to us that the work of the little artists is appreciated and that is why we were looking for a way to set up an exhibition in times of the Coronavirus. This is how we came up with the idea of the advertising pillars”, explains Ursula Heiler, IGSN coordinator and coordinator of the SFB 874 outreach project.
Walking route
The exhibition extends over six advertisement pillars, all of which are in the northwest of Bochum’s city centre. The exact position of the pillars and a recommended route can be found on the map below. “We hope that the advertisement pillars will bring a little colour into the – currently rather grey – everyday life and invite everyone interested to take a short walk in the fresh air and discover how the primary school students imagine learning processes in the brain “, says Denise Manahan-Vaughan.
The International Graduate School of Neuroscience is a joint institution of the Faculties of Biology, Chemistry, Medicine and Psychology as well as the Institute for Neural Computation at RUB and has been offering a neuroscientific doctoral degree (PhD) there since 2001. The SFB 874 “Integration and Representation of Sensory Processes” investigates how sensory signals generate neural maps, and how complex behaviour and memory formation result from this. It is funded by the German Research Foundation and has existed at Ruhr-Universität Bochum since 2010.
