Over 30 prints cover the wall at the Mallett Art Gallery, depicting various natural elements through the lens of a microscope. 11-year-old Victor Perez Francone stands under one that looks like wet pebbles.
He’s not looking at the print, however. He’s looking down at a cellphone — and that’s by design.
“That one's about volcanic rock,” Francone said. “That white thing is actually either quartz or a diamond, but those are really tiny, like, thinner than a single piece of hair I have on my finger.”
Francone learned all that from an educational video on Instagram. He scans a QR code on the wall underneath the print and discovers that the pebbles are actually volcanic beach sand under the microscope.
The exhibition, titled "Biology with a (Spanish) Accent", features artistic prints of photomicrographs, which are photographs of microscopic objects taken through a microscope. Each one is paired with a QR code linked to a video on Instagram or Tik Tok explaining the natural element being depicted.
“I just wanted to show that science can be beautiful,” said Adolfo Sánchez-Blanco, the biology professor at CT State Community College Capital behind the exhibit.
When thinking of the idea for this exhibit, he said he wanted to build a bridge between the virtual and physical world, so people can appreciate art and science through the power of social media.
“You don't need to know what those [prints] are in order to be attracted by them, but then when you actually know what they are, you're like, ‘Oh my God. I cannot believe it,'” Sánchez-Blanco said.
Embracing social media for new generations
Teury Garcia is a student in Sánchez-Blanco’s anatomy and physiology II class. She’s scanning QR codes in that class all the time. Garcia even has a folder on Instagram where she saves all of Sánchez-Blanco’s videos for class.
“When we go to lab with him, he gives us these study guides, and automatically, you can use your phone to scan it, and it'll take you right to the slide of the organ that we're studying,” Garcia said.
This was exactly the goal when Sánchez-Blanco turned his hobby of recording natural phenomena on social media into creating videos for his students.
“I wanted to use social media as basically a vehicle of communication to the new generations, because this is a way they see life now,” Sánchez-Blanco said. “They see life through the face of social media. So why would we hide away from that?”
Sánchez Blanco made a collection of videos for his Intro to Biology students. Later, he said he was able to get those videos into a new interactive edition of the lab manual.
“We incorporated more than 70 videos into the lab manual, and the students love it,” Sánchez-Blanco said. “They pull out their phones, scan the QR code, and it directs them to my social media.”
Sánchez-Blanco is bringing that same kind of accessibility to science on a larger scale through the exhibition. He said oftentimes it’s the science that makes the artwork fascinating.
For example, a print of spore heads from a horsetail plant looks like black dust specks with long skinny legs coming off them. The video, however, shows how humidity causes them to move. They almost look like walking balls of soot.
“Some images are beautiful in their own right, but at the same time they are telling a story, and when you see the story, the story is sometimes more fascinating than the beautiful image itself,” Sánchez-Blanco said.
Putting Latino stereotypes under the microscope
The exhibit is titled “Biology with a (Spanish) Accent” as a nod to Sánchez-Blanco’s experience as a biologist from Spain, he said.
“I got a lot of criticism about the grammar, because when people that are just focusing on the grammar see it, they get very confused about the fact that it’s Biology with a (Spanish) Accent. They're like, ‘No, it should be ‘biology with an accent.’ Well, no, because it's a Spanish accent,” Sánchez-Blanco said.
Sánchez-Blanco said he put the word Spanish in parentheses because biology is universal, but his Spanish accent is an important part of who he is.
“There was a point in my life where I acknowledged that this accent is not going anywhere. So I might as well not just acknowledge it, but embrace it and be proud of it,” Sánchez-Blanco said.
Highlighting the Spanish part aligns with the goal of the Hartford Heritage Project. The initiative is an effort from CT State Capital to promote learning between the college and its surrounding communities, including Hartford arts and cultural institutions.
“We do a number of activities every semester, and all of them have the same purpose: to erase the stereotype that anything that has to do with the Latino culture is about salsa and empanadas, because that doesn't help,” Sánchez-Blanco said. “That actually reinforces the ridiculous stereotypes that block you to see what the Latino Hispanic communities are doing and have been doing in the different parts of the country where you may be living.”
At the opening reception of the exhibition, CT State Capital student Romina Zavala said she felt inspired hearing Sánchez-Blanco give his presentation with his accent.
“I would like to do a bit of what he does, talk about science, but I’m still afraid. I ask myself, ‘What if they don’t understand me?’” Zavala said in Spanish.
Sánchez-Blanco said he dedicated his exhibit to students like Zavala.
“We are a community college. There is a big percentage of those that English is not their first language. I know that those [students] have experienced similar things as I did,” Sánchez-Blanco said. “It was for them, because we're in the same boat.”
Learn more
The Biology with a (Spanish) Accent exhibition is on view at the Mallett Art Gallery at CT State Community College Capital in Hartford through December 15.
You can find Sánchez-Blanco’s educational videos through his social media:
TikTok: @dr.bioforever
Instagram: @dr.bio4ever
YouTube: @dr.bioforever
