Keywords: education, innovation

Main users: Wider community

The Short Circuit Gallery of Public Art is an initiative taken by the UFRJ Science Park and the School of Fine Arts to transform the Park into a live laboratory for experimenting art that mixes technology and innovation.

UFRJ believes that the Science Park is a meeting point. For the sociologist Mark Grannoveter, ""the ""strength of an interpersonal tie is a linear combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (or mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize each tie"". Therefore, when one builds trust and creates strong bonds, one can intensify the sharing of challenges, desires and dreams in the construction of a shared future. The ""short-circuit"" concept comes from the desire to cause lightning bolts, illuminations and sparks, which, as a result, promotes non-obvious interactions. By transforming the Park into a living lab for art experimentation that puts technology and innovation together, we are investing in more humane environments of innovation. If the Science Park is indeed a meeting point, then it needs to be an inspiring one!

It is the first time that something like this has been done and it aims at promoting interactions that do not seem obvious at a first glance (art, technology and innovation in an open air space that is also free). This helps to contribute to the evolution of the STEAM concept, to transform research policies that put Art + Design at the heart of STEM, and to promote the integration of Art + Design in education. It also encourages employers to hire artists and designers to work on innovation. The project involves a network of institutions around the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, the NGO Redes da Maré (located in the largest compound of favelas in Latin America) and the university""s residential village.

The Gallery is coming to its fourth cycle of exhibitions. Since its inception, it has produced 58 original works and included over 200 professionals. On December 21, 2018, over 1200 professionals worked at the Park and started to attend the laboratories of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (public health institution). Their contact with the scientists offered several positive short circuits, because there is so much art in science and so much science in the arts! The Gallery has helped to consolidate the idea that an innovative environment needs to foster diversity of ideas and people. The audiences interested in leisure and art who visited the Park have discovered that it is one of the best and largest science parks in Brazil.