By Ruoran (Kathy) Li, Junior Project Manager - Art-Science
Fall 2021 was a season of significance to me when I was both insanely naïve and extremely lucky. In my personal life, I’ve regained my confidence and finished the hardest part of being a new mother. I was wrong. In my professional career, I decided to take a leap into a different direction and believed a net would appear. I was right.
Art-science-technology, or “AST”, has been a field of interest to me for some years, yet I haven’t been successful in nudging my way into this world. I have been in the performing arts field for many years with work experience both in China and the US, which has a lot less interdisciplinary activity than the vibrant collaborations between visual art and the science/tech field. The recent boom of AST projects has increased the difficulty of probing this field; the sheer amount of research needed for an outsider to have even just a rough understanding of what’s happening is daunting.
My responsibilities as Art-Science JPM at Swissnex in China were to assist our public-facing projects, including three hybrid events of the lecture series Café des Sciences, one online webinar of the Art x Science Dialogue series, and several other special events. In addition, I conducted research to find leads for future collaboration and strengthen existing relationships. Cissy, my supervisor, pointed me to the right places to look for information and generously shared her insights. I enjoyed our daily exchange and impromptu brainstorming sessions and frequently used them as jumping boards to dig into different topics.
As a result, My scope of knowledge in the AST field has been significantly broadened, and I’ve become much more familiar with the lingo and key players, with a special focus on Swiss practitioners and institutions. Having seen and heard about so many existing projects in the fields, I developed my own preliminary set of values and theories for designing systems and practices that can best support interdisciplinary projects. During the Swissnex network’s organizational transition period, I also had the opportunity to think not just in a project-oriented way but also engage in the discussion of the big picture.
Professional development was not the only thing I gratefully found at Swissnex. In this friendly and supportive environment, I learned so much from literally everyone. Whether it’s debating the best translation of certain phrases, optimizing a technical solution, sharing the happenings in different industries, finding the best restaurants in the neighborhood, or even helpful parenting tips, there is always someone who knows the answer.
From day one, I felt like a part of the team. And now, six months later, with new knowledge under my belt, new projects on the horizon, and a heart full of friendship and congeniality that I’ve found among my dearest colleagues at Swissnex, I set off again into the world and hoping that our path will cross again soon.
