People — NanoVignettes

About the people:

RBS 2017-06, Bursaries; DSC_1726 ed..jpeg — Melissa Pierce Murray

Artist and Creative Director

Melissa's Website

Melissa is a sculptor whose works equally evoke human emotions and forces of immense landscapes. Informed by poetry, physics and dance, they are physical metaphors which speak about the experience of being human - subject to intense feelings and complex thoughts from within, and powerful forces of nature and culture from without.

She chooses materials for their potential to be transformed while still retaining their own meanings. In recent works she embedded spiky black shards of steel in blocks of transparent ice, and wrapped steel in precarious arrangements in swathes of bubble-wrap. She is currently working on a series of installations exploring the precarious resilience she sees in how humans relate to physical environments and to each other around the globe.

Recent exhibitions include SciArt at the Cavendish (2018), Stasis (Cambridge, 2017), Royal Society of Sculptors Bursary Show (2017), Into Boundless Space I Leap, (curated by Kettle’s Yard for the University of Cambridge Maxwell Center, 2016) and Constellation (Norwich Undercroft, 2016). In 2016, Murray was jointly commissioned to create Breaking Boundaries, a live art installation combining sculpture, dance, and video, for Passion for Knowledge (San Sebastian, Spain). Awards and Residencies include Ashurt Emerging Artist Art Prize (Shortlisted, 2018), AA2A Placement (2017), Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Award (2016), and Contemporary Visual Arts Network/Museums at Night mentoring program (2016). She holds a BA in English Literature and Physics, and an MA in Fine Arts.

h ttps://melissapmurray.com/

Philipp Koehler

Scientist and Photographer/ Filmmaker

Philipp's Website

Philipp is a c2015 NanoDTC student, working on optofluidic microreactors for advanced photocatalysis in his PhD, jointly between the Optofluidics Group (Department of Physics) and the Reisner Group (Department of Chemistry). Also an experienced photographer and filmmaker, he expresses his creativity and ideas visually in the forms of science, photography, and filmmaking. He likes to break things down to get to their roots. In terms of science, this means simplifying complex systems until a basic model remains that can explain the overall behaviour. In terms of art, this makes him an advocate for minimalistic design, which is discernible in his portrait work. Simplifying and decluttering are processes that he actively engages in. He thrives in environments with enough creative space to generate new ideas.

Philipp did his Bachelor and Master of Science in Physics at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, before moving to the NanoDTC at Cambridge.

Optofluidics Group & Reisner Group

https://philippkoehler.com/