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Mycelium & Muse

A Science Storytelling Workshop
Bitasta Datta
Science and Technology | Science Storytelling

We often equate creativity with making art. Picasso was creative. Beethoven was creative. Van Gogh was creative. But what about the person who first picked up a piece of charcoal and scribbled on the wall of a cave, hoping the people in the next cave would get  the message? Or the bowerbird who spends an entire season collecting blue bottle caps and flowers to decorate a little stage for a Mate? And what about a fungus? This one is literally brainless, yet it sends out electrical signals that, when connected to a synthesiser, play out like music. So if creativity shows up in organisms without brains, it is far older than us, isn't it?

That's the question we'll sit with: 

Where does creativity really begin on the tree of life, and what does that mean for all of us who have spent years saying "I'm just not the creative type". Along the way, you'll hear a mushroom playing music, make an idea card that is deliberately, wonderfully bad, write a letter to your future self, and discover a new answer to the question “Am I creative?” You don't need any science background to join in. Just come in, and let's get some creativity

Brewing. Because, tell you what, we are not sure if a creative life is a happier one. But we can absolutely guarantee that it's a far more meaningful one.

 

About the facilitator: 

Bitasta Datta is a microbiologist by training, an educator by profession and a science storyteller by passion.

For over 10 years, she has been turning science into stories for school learners and curious adults. She started at the National Digital Library of India, went on to co-found The Synapse, led curriculum and learning experience design at BYJU'S and Tutopiya, and now leads the efforts at Khan Academy India to narrate science in a way that sticks.

She believes science and art are two lenses on the same world, and that if you look through both long enough, you arrive at the same philosophy. So that's what she does. She dissects science to find the art in it, dissects art to find the science in it, and narrates her findings as stories.

Outside work, she paints, bakes, and travels, and writes about the places where science, art and philosophy run into each other. Mycelium & Muse began as one of those pieces

 


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