In Episode 4 of Art &, we meet Manu Prakash—a Stanford bioengineer whose lab invents frugal, open-source tools that make global science accessible—and artist/designer Jiabao Li, whose work spans technology, biology, ecology, and planetary futures. Their collaboration centers on The Long Fall, an expansive performance and installation that transforms microscopic plankton into a planetary-scale story about climate change and connection.

What started as Jiabao’s sabbatical project in Manu’s lab grew out of a shared inquiry: How can art and science work together to reveal the invisible systems shaping life on Earth? Drawing from Manu’s career of ocean expeditions, the two collaborated on a piece that moves across scales, charting the descent of plankton through the deep ocean, to the global forces of oceanic warming and shifting ecosystems. Together, they shaped a narrative that is part planetary meditation, part scientific revelation, and part emotional encounter with the unseen.

Manu, Jiabao, and Ellen explore how interdisciplinary collaboration can reshape how we perceive the planet—how art can resist despair, open space for hope, and invite everyday people to feel the urgency of climate change not through raw research, but through wonder and beauty.

Featured Guests: Manu Prakash & Jiabao Li

Follow Stanford Arts on Instagram and YouTube for more stories and updates.

Host: Ellen Oh
Creator / Producer / Editor: Taylor Jones
Production Support: Edi Dai
Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Chase Everett
Theme Song & Music: Juana Izuzquiza
Executive Producers: Ellen Oh and Anne Shulock
Artwork: Connie Ko

In Episode 3 of Art &, we meet Anita Mohan — a clinical assistant professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Stanford Medicine — and Lauren Toomer, an artist and lecturer in Stanford’s Department of Art & Art History.

The two reflect on their personal paths to letting art inform their professional perspectives, and how a chance meeting during a medical humanities fellowship sparked a collaboration that integrates art and medicine.

During the episode, Mohan touches on how plastic surgery’s focus on form, beauty, and what makes the anatomy aesthetically pleasing made for an organic connection to similar topics in art. Toomer shares how taking an undergraduate course on art, medicine and disability opened up her mind to thinking about the world in a more holistic way.

Together, they’re designing workshops that encourage medical students to slow down, observe, and see the body through an artist’s eye.

Hosted by Ellen Oh, Director of Interdisciplinary Arts Programs at Stanford Arts, the Art & Podcast explores arts-driven collaborations across Stanford University’s dynamic research ecosystem through lively conversations about how creative perspectives can spark new pathways, insights, and solutions for the most pressing issues of our time.

Featured Guests: Anita Mohan and Lauren Toomer

Follow Stanford Arts on Instagram and YouTube for more stories and updates.

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Credits

Host: Ellen Oh

Creator/Producer/Editor: Taylor Jones

Production Support: Edi Dai

Sound Designer and Mix Engineer: Chase Everett

Theme song and Music: Juana Izuzquiza

Executive Producers: Ellen Oh and Anne Shulock

Artwork: Connie Ko

In Episode 2 of Art &, we meet Ramón Perisé—chef and Head of R&D at the internationally acclaimed Basque restaurant Mugaritz, and a Doerr Visiting Artist at Stanford—alongside Vayu Hill-Maini, a Stanford bioengineering professor whose lab explores fermentation, microbial systems, and the creative edges of biology. Their collaboration marks a rare and exciting model for campus: a chef-in-residence program that merges avant-garde gastronomy with scientific research, sustainability, and design.

In this conversation, Ramón and Vayu trace the roots of their partnership, which began more than a decade ago when Vayu was a student searching for ways to merge science and cooking. That early exchange shaped his path as a researcher—and now returns in the form of a residency that brings Mugaritz’s playful, provocative approach to Stanford. Together, they walk us through their newest line of inquiry: the study of Neurospora, a vivid orange fungus whose biological and culinary potential opens the door to what they call “genetic gastronomy”—designing flavor, nutrition, and sensory experience directly through microbial life.

For both of them, fermentation becomes a framework for thinking: a process that connects the microscopic to the planetary, linking questions of transformation, ecology, and sustainability. They describe the cross-disciplinary ecosystem they’re building on campus—hands-on workshops at the O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm, part of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, collaborative experiments in the lab, plans for a communal meal, and a forthcoming Neurospora zine—all aimed at creating new forms of exchange between chefs, scientists, farmers, students, and the public.

Together, Ramón, Vayu, and Ellen explore what becomes possible when culinary practice and scientific inquiry move in tandem—how food can function as a form of cultural research, how microbes can reshape the boundaries of creativity, and how cross-disciplinary collaboration can spark new ways of thinking about sustainability.

Featured Guest: Vayu Hill-Maini & Ramón Perisé

Follow Stanford Arts on Instagram and YouTube for more stories and updates.

Credits

Host: Ellen Oh

Creator/Producer/Editor: Taylor Jones

Production Support: Edi Dai

Sound Designer and Mix Engineer: Chase Everett

Theme song and Music: Juana Izuzquiza

Executive Producers: Ellen Oh and Anne Shulock

Artwork: Connie Ko