SAIRA MUNSHANI
Saira is a mixed media artist based in Boston whose work explores the relationship between the sciences, our lived experience, and the natural world. She’s drawn to the patterns that show up at every scale, such as branching, symmetry, recursion, and iteration. Using discarded materials and outdated textbooks, she works mostly in collage and watercolor.
Find this poster at Harvard Office for the Arts
ARTIST Q&A
Born: Easton, CT
Currently lives: Brookline, MA
Title of artwork: Working Theory
What’s it about?
This piece depicts a slice of spinal cord and two competing pictures of what is within it. On the left, neurons form one continuous web, which is the way scientists understood neuronal connectivity for much of the nineteenth century. On the right, neurons appear as distinct units with gaps between them, which is the model we use today. A plant, indifferent to any sort of distinction, grows through both. Small figures move across the structures, representative of the scientists, patients, and others who contribute to our understanding of the body. At its heart, the piece is about the provisional nature of scientific models — how they shift and get revised — and about the people who drive those paradigm shifts.
Where else can we find your work?
Currently, I have a piece in Countway Medical Library as part of the Harvard Staff Art Show.
Where is your favorite public art piece in the area?
The Make Way for Ducklings bronze sculpture in the Public Garden!
Who is your favorite Boston-area artist to follow?
Latley, I have been loving Pearl Cowan’s watercolor paintings.
What’s your favorite way to spend a day off?
Reading outside or making cyanotypes, collaging, and baking dark chocolate chip cookies with sea salt.
Favorite food spot in in Allston, Brighton or the surrounding area?
Clear Flour Bakery!
What have you learned about your creative practice in recent years?
That my creative work is inseparable from my scientific work – they can inform each other in unexpected ways!
What is a piece of advice you would give to your past self as a young artist?
How being playful while making art is important. Also, perfection isn’t real.
You’re hosting book club next, what is everyone reading?
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas
What is your dream project to work on?
I would love to work with others on a piece that uses different kinds of media (textile, sculpture, light, etc.) – especially if it has to do with science or medicine!
