AM: We love what you said about storytelling in the opening remarks. Can you please expand upon that?
SK: We have a campaign going on called Champions of Science, and want to make people understand that science and technology are really important for us in healthcare and many other things, like food, fuel and energy.. With the Africa storytelling challenge, there is a lot of science, technology and entrepreneurship going on there. Many people just think of disease and poverty, so we need to tell the positive stories. Winners will be featured on the platform and phase two will start.
Science can seem so complex to people, it sort of happens behind the lab and seems mysterious, so one of things that storytelling does is it really makes the complex simple, it makes it human, and it connects - facts and figures are great because they are needed for credibility and accuracy, but charts, graphs and numbers do not engage the heart. What engages the heart is really storytelling. There is a tradition of storytelling in all of our cultures, because that's how you've learned your value systems and information, when not even knowing you're being educated because you're listening to the story, but somehow it wires your brain with a lot of information. So storytelling is extraordinarily important in engaging people. Not even just the public, anybody can react to a story, so I think it is an important part of public engagement.
A bit before this preview, Jim Allison, Ph.D, Chair of the Department of Immunology, MD Anderson Center, won the Dr. Paul Janssen Award for groundbreaking work with Checkpoint Inhibitors, where the immune system is being used as a way to try attack cancer. Now immunotherapy is becoming a big breakthrough way to attack cancer. This gentleman has figured out, just like a gas pedal and a break, there is a break in the immune system and that break prevents the immune system from going after a cancer, and if you can release that break, the immune system can go and attack the cancer. We have heard stories about women with tumors all over their bodies, and the tumors can shrink after the first treatment and go away, and one woman featured has been living for over ten years. This is about turning on the switch of checkpoint inhibitors to go attack the cancer in cancer immunotherapy.
The Champions of Science – Africa Storytelling Challenge aims to unearth the inspirational stories of African innovators, and invites scientists doing work on the African continent to come forward and share their stories. "A tremendous amount of science is taking place across Africa, with researchers and innovators developing solutions that can have a significant impact on society," said Seema Kumar, Vice President, Innovation, Global Health and Science Policy Communication, Johnson & Johnson. "By amplifying the stories of innovation taking place across Africa and the impact it is having on families, communities and the world, we hope to build public engagement and support for science, and inspire the next generation to pursue scientific fields that will have the potential to drive Africa's socio-economic transformation."
We also spoke with Ken Arnold, Creative Director, and Simon Chaplin, Director of Culture and Society, at Wellcome Trust. The Wellcome Trust is a biomedical research charity based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Sir Henry Wellcome to fund research to improve human and animal health. The aim of the Trust is to "achieve extraordinary improvements in health by supporting the brightest minds", and in addition to funding biomedical research it supports the public understanding of science.
AM: Please tell us about Wellcome and the Germ City: Microbes and the Metropolis exhibition.
KEN ARNOLD: Wellcome has been delighted to collaborate with colleagues at MCNY to co-produce the exhibition Germ City, and further to work in close collaboration with their next-door-neighbours the New York Academy of Medicine. The show explores how New York has shaped – and been shaped by – the fight against contagious diseases such as cholera, and TB. Through a range of intriguing historical objects, powerful contemporary art commissions and interactive features, the exhibition teases out the personal, cultural, political and medical dimensions of contagion in this truly global city.
SIMON CHAPLIN: The show tells stories about health and illness, immune systems and antibiotics, breakthroughs in treatments and vaccinations; and on a more granular individual scale, stories of the lives and struggles of ordinary New Yorkers. But it’s just as much about the structure of urban life: housing, water systems, sanitation, and individual and collective rights. Inevitably, it also touches on issues of social injustice and conflict.
AM: What other exhibitions and projects are part of Wellcome's Contagious Cities international project?
KA: Germ City is the first exhibition in Wellcome’s ambitiously broad international Contagious Cities initiative. Timed to coincide with the centenary of the 1918/19 influenza pandemic, Contagious Cities is a cultural project that spans Geneva, Hong
Kong and New York. Each has its own fascinating, often tragic, but also sometimes hopeful set of disease stories to share. With the World Health Organisation headquartered there, Geneva is arguably the city in the world where most thought is given to contagion and epidemics. Contagious cities commissioned WHO’s first artists in residence. While Hong Kong is perhaps the world’s most connected city, with a vibrant history as a hub of international travel, but also of contagious diseases. A major part of the project there will be an art-led exhibition at Tai Kwun, Hong Kong’s brand-new centre for heritage and arts.
AM: What are some of the upcoming featured artist residencies, broadcasts, events and interactive storytelling experiences?
KA: Across New York ‘Contagious Cities’ features exhibitions, artist residencies, broadcasts, events and interactive storytelling experiences. The Tenement Museum will host a series of special tours of its historic Lower East Side buildings focused on former residents’ tales of disease, medicine, immigration and reform; while WNYC have drawn on their archives and newsroom to offer a series of narratives chronicling the relationship between cities and contagious disease. Other activities are based at the New York Public Library, CUNY’s Graduate School and the Brooklyn Historical Society.
