Art of the very, very small to debut at Dane County Airport

Artful images of the very, very small — cells, molecules and nanoscale structures — will be on display beginning Friday, April 24, at the Art Court of the Dane County Regional Airport.

The show, “Tiny: Art From Microscopes at UW–Madison,” will be open through September and features the beautiful images generated in the course of research by UW–Madison biologists, engineers and physical scientists. The show is free and open to the public.

Organized by Tandem Press, the exhibit seeks to expose the often-underappreciated creative and visual nature of the scientific enterprise. Microscopy and other forms of scientific imaging have undergone a revolution in recent decades, and structures that were once hidden have come into full view with the aid of modern technology.

The images created by scientists inform their work and frequently comprise original data used in scientific research. But scientists also take great pride in the aesthetic qualities of their imagery, and such pictures have been used to help capture the imagination of the public and stimulate public interest in the enterprise of scientific discovery.