Maria pomiansky
Few artistic collaborations have shaped the development of Art of Molecule as profoundly as our long-standing partnership with Swiss artist Maria Pomiansky.
Our collaboration began in 2015, when Maria and fellow students from the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) became involved in the early development of what would later become Art of Molecule. Since then, our creative dialogue has grown into a lasting partnership, resulting in numerous exhibitions, publications, artistic interventions, and public engagement projects that have brought scientific research into entirely new cultural contexts.
Over many years, Maria spent countless hours in our laboratories in Basel and Zurich, observing researchers at work, sketching, drawing, and painting the everyday reality of Engineering Life. Her artworks reveal the human dimension of scientific research, capturing moments of concentration, collaboration, uncertainty, and discovery that often remain invisible behind scientific publications and data.
Among the many outcomes of this collaboration are the NCCR MSE Sketchbook, several exhibitions, and The Placebo Effect, a large-scale oil painting portraying one of our research laboratories. The work is part of the Art of Molecule collection and is permanently exhibited in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Basel.
Maria's artistic engagement with science has also received international recognition. In 2021, she was awarded the prestigious Swiss Art Award, with one of the prize-winning paintings depicting researchers working in an NCCR Molecular Systems Engineering laboratory. Her work has subsequently been exhibited at the Swiss Art Awards during Art Basel and in the major exhibition Take Care – Art and Medicine at the Kunsthaus Zürich. Maria Pomiansky's work exemplifies the vision of Art of Molecule: art does not merely illustrate science—it opens new ways of seeing, questioning, and understanding it.
Our collaboration began in 2015, when Maria and fellow students from the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) became involved in the early development of what would later become Art of Molecule. Since then, our creative dialogue has grown into a lasting partnership, resulting in numerous exhibitions, publications, artistic interventions, and public engagement projects that have brought scientific research into entirely new cultural contexts.
Over many years, Maria spent countless hours in our laboratories in Basel and Zurich, observing researchers at work, sketching, drawing, and painting the everyday reality of Engineering Life. Her artworks reveal the human dimension of scientific research, capturing moments of concentration, collaboration, uncertainty, and discovery that often remain invisible behind scientific publications and data.
Among the many outcomes of this collaboration are the NCCR MSE Sketchbook, several exhibitions, and The Placebo Effect, a large-scale oil painting portraying one of our research laboratories. The work is part of the Art of Molecule collection and is permanently exhibited in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Basel.
Maria's artistic engagement with science has also received international recognition. In 2021, she was awarded the prestigious Swiss Art Award, with one of the prize-winning paintings depicting researchers working in an NCCR Molecular Systems Engineering laboratory. Her work has subsequently been exhibited at the Swiss Art Awards during Art Basel and in the major exhibition Take Care – Art and Medicine at the Kunsthaus Zürich. Maria Pomiansky's work exemplifies the vision of Art of Molecule: art does not merely illustrate science—it opens new ways of seeing, questioning, and understanding it.
Maria Pomiansky presenting "The Placebo Effect", currently exhibited in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Basel.
Take Care: Kunst und Medizin
Wanderings through the history of illness and healing - Kunsthaus Zürich
The exhibition examines the productive interplay of sickness and pain, medicine, care and healing through 300 exhibits, over 250 of which are being made available by more than 40 national and international lenders. Early examples date back to the 15th century, while the most recent are works from 2022 produced specially for the exhibition.In direct neighbourhood to artworks form Alberto Giacometti, Damien Hirst and Paul Klee a painting by Maria Pomiansky of one our the NCCR MSE labs is on display.
Wanderings through the history of illness and healing - Kunsthaus Zürich
The exhibition examines the productive interplay of sickness and pain, medicine, care and healing through 300 exhibits, over 250 of which are being made available by more than 40 national and international lenders. Early examples date back to the 15th century, while the most recent are works from 2022 produced specially for the exhibition.In direct neighbourhood to artworks form Alberto Giacometti, Damien Hirst and Paul Klee a painting by Maria Pomiansky of one our the NCCR MSE labs is on display.
"Laboratory in the NCCR" &
2 sheets from a group of works created during an artist residency in the laboratory of the NCCR Molecular Systems Engineering, Basel
Catalogue Text:
Progress in medicine is today inseparably bound up with basic research at universities. No institution now makes breakthroughs by acting alone.
The NCCR Molecular Systems Engineering at the University of Basel and ETH Zürich is a research institute financed by the Swiss National Fund, whose Ethical Matrix invites artists like Maria Pomiansky to deal proactively with ethical ques-tions. Ralf Stutzki, Head Ethics NCCR MSE, provides the following information on what is captured here: 'In this laboratory situation researchers are working on microfluidic technologies for developing new kinds of biocatalysers. The two monitors show the production of water-in-oil drops. Above the two monitors it is possible to see a function generator, an oscilloscope and voltage amplifiers.
This procedure of guided evolution, which was developed even before the pandemic, is now also used in coronavirus research, to find therapeutic antibodies' (Basel, 2021).
Maria Pomiansky
MA Fine Arts, Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)
MA Scenography, Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)
BA Fine Arts, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem
Selected collaborations with Art of Molecule
Co-developer of the Art of Molecule initiative (since 2015)
NCCR MSE Sketchbook
The Placebo Effect (permanent installation, University of Basel)
Swiss Art Award 2021
Take Care – Art and Medicine, Kunsthaus Zürich