Fas­cin­a­tion of the in­vis­ible

The art­work de­picts the com­plex stud­ies car­ried out by the sci­ent­ists of the de­part­ment. For ex­ample, you can see the mi­cro­bial hab­it­ats that they fo­cus on: From hot vents in the deep sea to the coastal areas of the oceans. Start­ing from the “big world”, Al­exa gradu­ally shows more and more de­tails un­til she ar­rives at uni­cel­lu­lar or­gan­isms and takes a look through the mi­cro­scope with the viewer. At the same time, she de­scribes im­port­ant re­search equip­ment, shows the every­day life at the in­sti­tute between mi­cro­scope, labor­at­ory and com­puter, and keeps the con­nect­ing ele­ment con­stantly flow­ing in between: the sea­wa­ter.

Very small but very important

However, re­search does not just mean to look, re­search also means to touch. For that reason, the mural also con­tains in­ter­act­ive ele­ments. Hatches, petri dishes or a mag­netic model of a wa­ter sampling rosette bring to life the re­search of the de­part­ment. Fi­nally, also the "Mo­lecol"-sci­ent­ists con­trib­uted to the mural: In short words they de­scribe what sci­ence means for them and why they find single-cell or­gan­isms are so fas­cin­at­ing. 

Al­exa char­ac­ter­izes this in her paint­ing: “The ocean is full of life, which is mostly in­vis­ible to our eyes. These in­hab­it­ants are highly di­verse and cru­cial for the sur­vival of the whole planet. The mi­cro­bial com­munity is dy­namic, unique in each re­gion and changes throughout the day and the sea­sons. From the sur­face to the deep ocean our goal is to identify the mi­cro­bial com­munity com­pos­i­tion and its role.”

The mural clearly sum­mar­izes the work of the De­part­ment of Mo­lecu­lar Eco­logy in words and pic­tures and shows vis­it­ors why people ded­ic­ate their life to re­search the seem­ingly in­vis­ible.