48 | NewScientist | 28 April 2012

CULTURELAB

Each of 22 giant brains has been painted by a different artist

Brains on parade Neuroanatomist and stroke survivor Jill Bolte Taylor tells Kat Austen how she hopes an outdoor display of cerebral artwork will get people thinking

ProfileJill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist and author of My Stroke of Insight (Viking, 2008). Her new project, the Brain Extravaganza, will be on display in Bloomington, Indiana, from April to October 2012

Why are you opening an outdoor exhibition of giant brains? I care about the brain. I grew up wanting to study it because I have a brother diagnosed with schizophrenia. Then in 1996, when I was a neuroscience researcher at Harvard Medical School, I experienced a rare form of stroke. A few years later, during my recovery, I was in Chicago, and on the streets they had sculptures of these enormous cows painted by individual artists so that every cow was different. I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to have brains on public display for art?

So for the past 10 years, I’ve been dreaming about having brains on display. And last year I started a not-for-profit organisation to raise appreciation for and awareness about the human brain. The Brain Extravaganza in Bloomington, Indiana, where I live, is the first project.

What will be on show? There are 22 enormous brains – five feet long, five feet high and four feet wide. Every brain is anatomically correct with 12 pairs of cranial nerves, and each is decorated by a different artist using different kinds of media.

Are there interactive elements? You can download a smartphone app that will paint your own virtual brain. At every exhibited brain, there is a sign with five facts, and there are also questions about your own actual brain. As you go around answering the questions relating to you, that information is added to the

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portrait of your virtual brain painted by the app, which you can upload to your Facebook page and to our website. On our site you can statistically compare your brain with some famous people’s brains.

Is there artistic licence in the individual designs? Well, one artist wanted to show pain at the front of the brain because pain is something that happens at the front of our consciousness, and sleep at the back of the brain because sleep is “in the back of our minds”. I told him I loved the theme, but from a neuroanatomical perspective, it didn’t make any sense. He had to

rearrange in his own mind how he was going to depict it, but he was fine with making the change so that it would fit with the anatomy of the brain.

The artists have been 100 per cent supportive of my desire to keep it at least fundamentally

neuroanatomically correct. It is an exciting project for them. Some are going to know all kinds of things about the brain that they didn’t know before.

As well as the Brain Extravaganza, do you offer educational outreach?Absolutely. Every year I volunteer to go into different schools. I take my… I call it my bucket of brains. It is a collection of mammalian brains ranging from a rat brain with a spinal cord, through to a monkey brain. Then I also bring my human tissue, which was donated by individuals who have passed away. I’m grateful for having the tissue available to teach with.

With all of these brains, I help children understand what we have in common with all mammals, what is unique to the human brain and how we can protect it.

What do you hope will come out of the art project?Ultimately, I care about mental health and I want to get people talking about brains. That absolutely thrills me.

But I also care about the health of the planet. I think that living inside our own brains has skewed our relationship with the biological systems of the planet.

If we can help increase our own mental health, brain by brain, then ultimately it will help to create more health in the wider world. For me there are lots of different layers of potential impact for what on the surface looks like a cute little art project. n

“I care about mental health and I want to get people talking about brains. That absolutely thrills me”

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