This week, I have another guest on my blog, my friend Abdul who also studied BSc Medicinal Chemistry with me. Abdul graduated from University College London in 2018 with a PhD in Chemistry, before deciding to pursue his artistic passions and turning towards photography and broadcasting. In this blog post, he will be telling us about his experience in presenting Virtually Reality - a showcase by DoDo Lemons.
Enjoy!
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When we try to communicate complex scientific material to the world, we often get fixated on trying to insert every key term or attempt to be fun and engaging, which can make us lose our vision or the scientific message. So today, I’d like to talk about science communication through a different medium. I was lucky enough to be part of an interesting, quirky show exploring concepts of perception and its relation to mental health, such as psychosis.


The show involved following me, the curator, around a gallery with a little twist. Without giving too much away, the immersive show allowed us to let our audience experience perception within two realities. It also provided the theoretical background to the way we get terrified by images or objects that resemble humans. A highly dense concept which could be explored in a variety of ways. The connection between our subconscious fear responses to these objects was relayed in a way that also highlights our reservation and sometimes aggressive attitudes towards people with atypical neurology or physicality. The fantastic actors and crew were able to formulate an experience for the audience that helped them understand what it is like to experience psychotic episodes. More importantly, how these occasions differed from what we perceive to be our norm.

DoDo lemons will hopefully return with some more thought-provoking work in the near future but in the meantime, have given us food-for-thought on how we can emphasise scientific ideas in a drastically different creative field.
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You can follow me on Instagram @crystalsandcatalysts and Abdul @abduliscrazy
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