From the ecology of the rainforest canopy to the promise of astrosurgery to an arts-based approach to improving community health, UofL projects are among the highlights of the first ACCelerate: ACC Smithsonian Creativity and Innovation Festival in the Washington, D.C. museum’s west wing Oct. 13-15. Virginia Tech is presenting the festival with the Smithsonian.            

The festival showcases “creative exploration and research at the nexus of science, engineering, arts and design” among the 15 participating ACC schools, according to the festival . Organizers project as many as 30,000 visitors could attend during the weekend.

“I think it certainly shows that we have work going on here that has huge public impact,” said Paul DeMarco, associate dean of UofL’s School of Interdisciplinary and Graduate Studies and a professor of psychological and brain sciences. DeMarco, who plans to attend, organized UofL’s involvement and oversaw the proposal process for the student-faculty teams involved.

Although the ACC is known widely for athletic achievements, “the intent here is to show these schools have research and work that’s being done by faculty, staff and students,” DeMarco said. “It was important for us to get the students involved.”

The festival will offer 15 dramatic and musical performances, including the 4 p.m. Oct. 14 performance about the intersection of art and public health by . The project leader is graduate student Tasha Golden, a former touring songwriter who directs the Center for Art + Health Innovation within the Commonwealth Institute of Kentucky, an entity of UofL’s School of Public Health and Information Sciences. The multidisciplinary presentation of works that reveal how arts address environmental and social toxins will include Smoketown poet Hannah Drake and Justin Golden.

Biologist Steve Yanoviak from the College of Arts and Sciences and George Pantalos, bioengineering and surgery professor with UofL’s Cardiovascular Innovation Institute, will be featured with their students in interactive exhibits and also as Oct. 14 panelists on the general theme of “Interdisciplinary Thinking and Collaboration.” There are 48 total exhibits.

Pantalos and students Audrey Riggs and Justin Heidel will exhibit two projects: the pediatric cardiovascular simulator designed to train critical care pediatric hospital staff and a joint UofL and Carnegie Mellon project intended to help treat trauma and other disorders surgically in reduced gravity during space missions. Pantalos’ Oct. 14 talk (12:30 p.m. panel on health and body) will focus on the KardioKid.

Yanoviak, whose panel on environment and sustainability begins at 4 p.m., will exhibit with students Max Adams and Evan Gora about their work on the examining forest structure, lightning and insect diversity. The collaboration with other scientists from various disciplines is done primarily at the Barro Colorado Island field station in Panama administered by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.  

The museum site for the ACCelerate Festival is on the National Mall on Constitution Avenue between Twelfth and Fourteenth streets NW. Festival hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Friday-Sunday.

The two entities are working together to design, create and implement a Center for Art + Health Innovation within the CIK to help Louisville become a national thought leader and training site for the improvement of community health through art.

“One of the greatest challenges in public health is authentically connecting with communities, as well as communicating effectively,” said Monica Wendel, DrPH, MA, director of the Commonwealth Institute of Kentucky and associate dean for Public Health Practice at the UofL School of Public Health and Information Sciences. “Our best science is relatively useless if we can’t make it accessible and actionable for people. Arts and culture provide us with the language necessary to foster mutual understanding.”

“We believe artists are a catalytic force who shape and influence our cultural, political and economic environments,” said Theo Edmonds, co-founder of IDEAS xLab. “They have the ability to make new options visible, and with the right training and support, can (re)introduce humanity into policy discussions and shift how community members define and advocate for their health and well-being.”

is IDEAS xLab’s signature project, and uses arts and cultural engagement to help communities discover creative ways to identify their health priorities and develop a health equity action plan for sustainable impact.

Edmonds says although data suggests that arts and culture influence population health, an evidence-based model is needed, and CIK researchers will be important collaborators in the process.

Last year, the CIK and IDEAS xLab partnered to launch a photovoice exhibit at the

. The project featured photographs and written observations of West Louisville residents, and set the stage for community conversations on ways to reduce violence in their neighborhoods. CIK and IDEAS xLab hope to bring more of these initiatives to life under the Center for Art + Health Innovation.

“CIK and IDEAS xLab have our eyes on the same goal –social justice and health equity. We are bringing our unique skill sets together to advance that goal in a creative way,” Wendel said.

CIK is part of the with a mission of informing policy and practice that will improve the health of populations in Kentucky and beyond. IDEAS xLab is a Louisville-based artist innovation company that trains artists as social entrepreneurs to help create equitable places and nurture healthy communities.