eXtreme19: when art and science make the front page

TL;DR

This paper describes a successful collaboration between astrophysicists and high school art students, resulting in innovative scientific graphics for a conference and a Nature Astronomy cover, demonstrating art-science integration.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interdisciplinary approach combining scientific communication with artistic expression through student collaboration.

Findings

High-quality scientific graphics produced by students

Artistic work adopted as conference visuals and journal cover

Effective interdisciplinary collaboration model

Abstract

Back in mid 2018, we were organizing eXtreme19, a conference on astro-particle physics held in Padova on the topic of extremely energetic emission from galaxies. For the preparation of the graphical material in support of the conference we seeked for a collaboration with talented art students. To this purpose, we joined the Italian programme PCTO (Percorsi per le Competenze Trasversali e per l Orientamento) of high school student stages in job centers. Emily, Beatrice, and Chiara from the high school Liceo Artistico Statale Amedeo Modigliani in Padova accepted our invitation and started a 6-month stage at the Padova University in close contact with us. The challenge was to interbreed our scientific description of a relativistic jet of a powerful galaxy and their artistic assimilation and subsequent representation of it. During this period, they elaborated outstanding and innovative graphical material used for the webpage as well as the conference poster. The quality of the graphics was indeed excellent: one of their drawings became the cover of the February 2020 issue of the prestigious Nature Astronomy journal.