Multidisciplinary artist and director Janani Balasubramanian ’12 is leaning into their relationships, curiosities and ways to “feel alive.” Much of their story, as described in an interview with The Daily, is rooted in a “happy accident of having gotten a truly bizarre liberal arts education at Stanford.”
Balasubramanian is a current Office of the Vice President for the Arts (VPA) visiting artist and former Denning visiting artist at Stanford. They are currently working on “Encounters,” a weekly podcast about creative and scientific inquiry. They will also hold their immersive art installation titled “The Gift” in Memorial Church this coming May through mid-June.
During their time as a Stanford student, Balasubramanian studied engineering and feminist studies, while undertaking various engineering internships and historical projects. But these experiences weren’t quite what Balasubramanian had in mind for their future.
Instead, Balasubramanian was looking for “a more expansive way to ask questions to figure out deep problems” and ways of “developing knowledge that wasn’t simply intended for academic distribution.”
Following graduation, Balasubramanian started their career as a professional artist in New York City. Balasubramanian met artists early on in their exhibition who helped the Stanford alum better understand their art.
“I needed to be in a deep relationship with living, practicing, breathing scientists and we needed to endeavor to discover some other area of questioning that lies beyond the reaches of any particular discipline,” Balasubramanian said.
Throughout their early to mid-twenties, Balasubramanian continued building relationships with colleagues like artist Andrew Kircher and completed several fellowships with their colleagues’ support.
Balasubramanian’s circles helped them lean further into their core research question of how to collaborate with scientists in producing art that is publicly resonant and accessible.
Balasubramanian’s other question was how to design “immersive experiences that are transformative, inviting and accessible in relation to disability and other parameters of accessibility.” This question is one that excites Balasubramanian and that continues to be a guiding focus of their work today.
At Stanford, Balasubramanian’s work lies in the intersection of community and conversation. Produced with creative producer Taylor Jones, “Encounters” is a cross-disciplinary podcast that examines art in the context of fields including physics, engineering, the arts and more.
Balasubramanian’s episodes discuss the lens of art as a way of “thinking and doing and experiencing” that should “permeate” every part of our lives, as well as how Stanford fits into the picture.
Ellen Oh, the director of Interdisciplinary Arts Program at Stanford Arts, was the first guest of “Encounters,” featured in the podcast episode released on July 17, 2024, where they explored the idea of cross-disciplinary co-creation.
“We wanted the show to focus on interdisciplinary research and practice,” Oh said. “Since Janani’s work is so expansive and can offer so many examples of deeply collaborative work, it just made sense.”
Balasubramanian offers a safe space for their podcast guests to discuss passions, adapting to their experience with the medium. Board member of the On Being Project and former vice chair of Stanford University’s Board of Trustees Srinija Srinivasan, another guest on “Encounters,” shared how she came into their episode with little context or preparation.
“I trusted Janani’s instincts and knew I was in good hands,” Srinivasan said. “I knew it would be an enjoyable exchange about things I love to ponder.”
Srinivasan described her episode with Balasubramanian as “a public version of the kind of conversation we’ve had many times together,” covering topics ranging from art practice to the sacred to consciousness to collective imagination.
In addition to “Encounters,” Balasubramanian is working on showcasing “The Gift” at the University. Created in collaboration with observational astrophysicist Natalie Gosnell, the installation premiered in the New York Public Library in 2022 and has been on tour to different art institutions across the country.
“The Gift” is a large book containing prints by Amy Myers and a musical score by Tina-Hanaé Miller to convey a story of the “transfer of material between stars connected it to human change” while inviting the audience to a “gentle, tactile, embodied and emotional interaction,” Balasubramanian said.
The book was designed as an immersive experience, made inviting to people who have felt marginalized in physics by presenting physics storytelling through contemporary art. The experience takes roughly about 10 minutes, which is the order of magnitude of how long the mass transfer process takes if a star lived like us.
Balasubramanian was initially interested in why we often use “metaphors of violent interactions” to describe outer space, referring to the stellar cannibalism phenomenon as an example.
“It’s like things go bam bam and boom boom in the universe,” Balasubramanian said. To Balasubramanian, this is a “pervasive narrative framework” and a frequent problem in how we narrate the natural world.
Balasubramanian was most interested in becoming aware of how culture is expressed through metaphors in science. In the context of art, “I take it as an artist to be a call to think about how metaphors in science can help us lead the kinds of lives we want to lead and help us reshape society,” Balasubramanian said.
For Balasubramanian, these are ways of relating “non-human phenomena and the wider world and universe in ways that promote peace and belonging and connection.”
Drawing from audience feedback that their artwork has especially helped in connecting with experiences of grief, Balasubramanian has aims to pursue this idea in the field of healthcare here at Stanford Medicine moving forward.
Looking back on their early career, Balasubramanian shared with The Daily advice to current students interested in pursuing a similar artistic journey: “Fear and doubt and insecurity and discomfort and challenge are absolutely part of the process. So much of society is designed against shunning those feelings, and if you want to dream and vision and expand, uncertainty and risk is just part of it.”