The daVinci Pursuit
Connecting Art, Science, and Community
Help Us Bring Science Through the Arts to Every Community
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Our Work
The daVinci Pursuit provides a community platform, grounded in solid science and creative thought. In the years, since our founding, the DaVinci Pursuit’s vision required us to look beyond the barriers and challenges our communities faced by utilizing the best practices from informal education, including its installations and programs, in order to provide a greater understanding of science and art.
Indianapolis, IN
The daVinci Pursuit explores how artistic installations and programs can promote community engagement in science thinking, irrespective of wealth or privilege. We believe that neighborhoods themselves are learning environments that provide unique opportunities where individuals of varying cultures and backgrounds can explore art and science in a non-threatening environment, free from the expense, staffing and access issues. It is through this open exploration that people access their inner creativity, building the self-efficacy and self-confidence necessary to transform their lives.
Dennis, MA
Collaboration of Over 500 Artists and Scientists
We work with local artists and scientists to create true collaborations where science and art are viewed through a new lens that uses the arts as a gateway to science learning.
We …
Communicate
Create Experiences
Discover and Support
Eliminate Barriers
Encourage Learning
Engage Community
Evaluate and learn
Inspire Individuals
Utilize Artists, Scientists, and Educators
Featured Programs
Classes & Workshops
Metallics: Painting with Metallic Watercolors 2024
Learning to use metallic watercolors is your painting can bring to life the highlights in your creations and cause things to “pop.” Come explore the techniques of using metallic watercolors in your work.Metallics: Painting with Metallic Watercolors Learn To Create...
Public Radio: Intersections
Terroir: Nature or Voodoo?
Aired Saturday, November 11, 2023Terroir: Nature or Voodoo?Show #253 Talking about the French notion of terroir has no equivalent word in English and requires the grower to consider all the natural variables that affect the growing of grapes. From the early monks in...
Art Science Walks
December 10, 2023: Fall: A Time of Gathering and Collecting
December 10, 2023, 1 - 2 pm – Fall: A Time of Gathering and Collecting DCLT's Tobey West, 272 Route 6A, Dennis Village (careful parking!). A joint program of the daVinci Pursuit and the Dennis Conservation Land Trust (DLCT). With fall comes the magic of change. As we...
daVinci Art Science Roundtable
The Convergence of Art and Neuroscience
Friday, January 12, 2024 1 to 2pm estdaVinci Art Science Roundtable - The Convergence of Art and Neuroscience daVinci Art Science Roundtable Members of the daVinci Art Science Roundtable will be having a conversation about "The convergence of art and neuroscience"....
Freedom through Art and Science
Friday, July 14, 2023 1 to 2pm estdaVinci Art Science Roundtable - Freedom through Art and Science daVinci Art Science Roundtable Members of the daVinci Art Science Roundtable will be having a conversation about "Freedom through Art and Science". Join us for this...
Artist Scientist Collaboration
daVinci ArtPorts
daVinci ArtPorts daVinci ArtPorts The need for a flexible, simple, and adaptable infrastructure for the arts exists in most communities. daVinci ArtPorts are designed as universal, in-ground, anchoring platforms for “pop-up” works of art, providing an innovative...
Our Work
In 2009, daVinci Pursuit founder, Mark Kesling, coined the phrase “A Museum Without Walls” to describe his vision for providing the community firsthand experiences with science and art. The vision he created sought to lower typical barriers to learning, by taking science and art to where people live and work, using informal educational techniques to excite and stimulate curiosity, providing experiences to those underserved by current institutions. The daVinci Pursuit provides a community platform, grounded in solid science and creative thought. In the years, since our founding, the DaVinci Pursuit’s vision required us to look beyond the barriers and challenges our communities faced by utilizing the best practices from informal education, including its installations and programs, in order to provide a greater understanding of science and art.
Conversations
Conversations serve as an incubator for creative and entrepreneurial engagement that allow individuals to participate in the creative economy and narratives of success. Individuals from differing socio-economic, racial, and cultural backgrounds find themselves excluded from the benefits of the creative economy and become the consumers of the creative work produced by others with greater advantage and access. Our approach widens and deepens the involvement of underserved adult populations, by providing the skills needed to help the community and individuals reframe the creative process thereby enabling pathways between community activity and the cultural and creative economy.
Interpretation
Interpretive experiences across different contexts and settings transform the perceptions of the learner, facilitate conceptual understanding, yield emotional engagement, and nurture the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes. In educational settings learning experiences are ideally challenging, interesting, rich, engaging, meaningful, and appropriate to learner needs.
Installations
Interactive installations are a way of activating a physical space through technology, movement, light, and sound that responds to the passerby. When designed correctly, these installations move people from passive audiences to engaged active participants. Installations inspire people to be more curious about the natural and built world around them, and to construct the foundations for more self-discovery and future learning.
Provocations
“Different stories; different arts and sciences; one history connecting us all.” We utilize storytelling as a catalyst for learning about art and science. Our use of the theatrical arts broadens audience outreach as well as develop new audiences. We create long-form performances (30 to 60 minutes in length), short-form performances (7-10 minutes), and Free-form Performances (Improvised) depending on the venue and needs of the audience.
Collaborations
The daVinci Pursuit cooperates with other community non-profits dedicated to creating a stronger sense of place in our neighborhoods and communities. The issues specifically confronting lower-income communities are complex and require creative and innovative solutions. The daVinci Pursuit catalyzes individuals in each neighborhood to create innovative visions that mobilize other neighbors, while attracting larger community-wide investment, and providing a framework for creative solutions. By forging creative partnerships between artists, scientists, and communities the daVinci Pursuit uses the arts and sciences as a means of developing self-efficacy and self-esteem.
Consulting
Our years of leadership in the fields of museum and informal education, allows us to provide innovative ideas, practical solutions, and dynamic installations and programs. The daVinci Pursuit provides consulting services in education and exhibit design, project management, fund development, evaluation, board development, and strategic planning.