The theme “mathematics, art, and creativity” for International Day of Mathematics 2025 was a perfect opportunity to explore the deep links between mathematics and art. As part of our program of celebrations, the SMRI team collaborated with the Chau Chak Wing Museum to bring to life a special weekend of Maths at the Museum. The program across both Saturday and Sunday included a lecture-recital: Sound of Symmetry, a rotating schedule of floor talks, collaborative artwork designed by artist Briony Barr, and maths craft stations developed by Kate Barnard, Jacinta den Besten and Rosa Zwier.
Across the weekend, almost 600 visitors to the museum engaged with the program of activities, which offered something for everyone. Working on the maths craft and Briony’s art piece offered a calm, almost meditative alternative to the packed schedule of floor talks, spanning a range of topics including; Shape finding and shape solving in architecture and maths (Henry Segerman & Rizal Muslimin); Purls of wisdom: geometry and topology in weavables, wearables and wallpaper (Sabetta Matsumoto); Explainer: Drawing on Complexity (Briony Barr); Hitemezashi Mathematics (Katherine Seaton); and A conversation about weaving, maths, and fibre engineering (Jared Field and Sabetta Matsumoto).
One of the highlights was the performance by Ensemble Offspring to accompany the Sound of Symmetry lecture by mathematician Artem Pulemotov and musicologist Denis Collins. Denis and Artem used music to represent high dimensional symmetries difficult to capture in drawings.
By involving artists, musicians, engineers, physicists, architects, and mathematicians in the conversation, the weekend celebrated how mathematical concepts appear across different disciplines.
Photo gallery
Photos by Jayne Ion.
