Summer 2022 Programming

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

(meet at PLUTO Park)

17:00 Uhr - Evening Rhine River Walk

Am Rheindorfer Ufer 1-353117, Bonn

BUS 600 from Bonn Central Station (Bonn Hbf‎→Bonn Kranenweg)

Please join galerie PLUTO for the one-hour Evening Rhine River Walk. After the walk, enjoy refreshments and conversation with a chance to view Rhine River Requiem by Barbara Benish, an exhibition at galerie PLUTO.

Fall 2020 Programming

Thank you for attending the September 2020 virtual event!

The galerie PLUTO event, Healing Spaces: Sen Sound and Hospital Rooms in Conversation, brought together two pairs of remarkable individuals who, collectively are using art to change the visual and aural landscape of healthcare spaces. PLUTO director, Dr. Jeremy Wasser moderated a discussion that centered around how improving the sensory experience of hospital spaces can impact patient well-being and improve clinical outcomes.

Hospital Rooms

Hospital Rooms was founded in 2016 by artist Tim A Shaw and curator Niamh White after a close friend was committed to a locked mental health ward. They were shocked by how stark, cold, clinical and inhuman the environment on the ward was. The charity now runs award-winning projects bringing extraordinary art and creative activity to inpatient mental health wards.

Niamh White

Niamh White is a curator who lives and works in London. She studied History of Art at Goldsmiths and was a Professional Fellow at the University of Leeds. She is co-founder of Hospital Rooms with artist Tim A Shaw, an award winning charity that radically transforms mental health units with museum quality artwork. Niamh and Tim were also winners of the Beyond Business social enterprise scheme where they received seed funding from Investec Bank to found Making Time, which provides arts training to dementia caregivers. They are curators of the Dentons Art Prize, a biannual £5,000 prize for early career artists and have organised many exhibitions for public and commercial galleries. Niamh previously worked at SHOWstudio and Hauser & Wirth.

Tim Shaw

Tim A Shaw is an artist and he lives and works in London. He studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins and recent solo and group exhibitions include: Pierrot Studio, Display Gallery, London; The Voice of a Generation, The Quin, NY; Control to Collapse, Blyth Gallery, London; Ugly, SHOWstudio, London; Musee Ernest Cognacq, Ile de Re; 1 Godley VC House, Griffin Gallery, London. Along with his partner Niamh White, he is the co-founder of Hospital Rooms, an arts and mental health charity that commissions extraordinary art for inpatient mental health units; Making Time, a social enterprise that delivers arts training to professional dementia caregivers; and the Dentons Art Prize, a biannual £5,000 award for exceptional emerging artists. He has delivered lectures internationally and recently wrote Draw & Be Happy, a book co-published by Quarto, Chronicle Books and Octopus Books.

Yoko K. Sen

Yoko K. Sen is an ambient electronic musician and the founder of Sen Sound, with a mission to transform the sound environment in hospitals. As a classically trained musician, sensitive to sound, she was disturbed by noise she had experienced in hospitals as a patient. Yoko is a former citizen artist fellow at the Kennedy Center, a former artist-in-residence at Johns Hopkins Sibley Innovation Hub and Stanford Medicine X. She has presented nationally and internationally, including at TEDMED and Aspen Ideas Festival, and her “My Last Sound,” was selected as a Top Idea by Open IDEO’s End of Life challenge. Yoko’s first album, “012906,” was nominated for “Best Album in Electronica” by the 6th Independent Awards, and her second album “Heaven’s Library,” earned her Washington Music Association Awards’ “Best Electronica Artist.” As a self-proclaimed “sound alchemist,” Yoko aspires to create music, which is, to quote Beethoven, “the mediator between the spiritual and sensual life.”

Avery Sen

Avery Sen, PhD, is co-founder and strategist at Sen Sound, a human-centered audio design studio with a mission to transform the sound environment in hospitals. He is also founder at Sentripetal, where he provides strategy and policy guidance to nonprofit science and technology organizations. Avery's work centers on how innovation is a social practice of collective sense-making, shaped as much by our tools to share meaning as our tools to explore and build. He has published and presented on transformative innovation, based on his research on management practices at DARPA and ARPA-E. For 15 years, he advanced evidence-based science policy at space, environment, healthcare, and security agencies. He has worked at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the futures consultancy Toffler Associates, and SRI International. Avery has a BA in Science & Technology Studies from Cornell University, and an MA in International Science & Technology Policy and a PhD in Public Administration from The George Washington University.