Taxonomies: Reuniting Art and science via a fascination with nature

This paper presents Taxonomies, a STEAM project placed on the in-tersection between art, science, and technology. In Taxonomies art is taking the lead role, providing a goal for action, while natural sciences and computation provide knowledge and means for artistic creation. The project is a collaboration between the University of Southern Denmark, the BiotechLab at Spinderihallerne and Rosborg Gymnasium, a Danish secondary school oriented towards the hu-manities. During the past year a series of 3 workshops was designed, imple-mented, and run at Rosborg, respectively focusing on: fabricating organic colors from plants, botanical painting with organic colors, and procedurally generating plant forms. Through our process, we found new insights on how to integrate art and science within STEAM, with art playing a sense-making role. Three forms of engagement were observed during the workshops: personal, sensorial, and ex-ploratory. The students expressed appreciation of the theoretical modules at the beginning of the workshops, and voiced curiosity for more in-depth knowledge about natural inks. A new iteration of the workshops is being run at Rosborg with the involvement of sciences teachers, which will provide richer insights on the relations between the different disciplines and students’ engagement.