ANN ARBOR—The University of Michigan website Montage features the latest news and features about the arts, culture, creative endeavors, collaborative projects and upcoming events. This week’s top arts-and-culture features include:

• The image from the Bioartography collection shows cells created from “adult” stem cells in the U-M Medical School laboratory of Jack Parent, M.D. Image courtesy of University of Michigan Health SystemAbstract beauty meets scientific truths: This week, the streets of downtown Ann Arbor will fill with hundreds of thousands of art lovers, seeking treasures at the hundreds of artists’ booths at the annual Ann Arbor Art Fair. But at one booth down on East University Avenue, the art for sale isn’t just beautiful. It might also save lives.

  All the images come directly from U-M medical research laboratories, and were taken through microscopes or scanners by U-M scientists who use the latest techniques to study a broad range of diseases. Each image takes the viewer deep inside stem cells, brain cells and other unseen inner workings of our bodies. Most were created by scientists from the U-M Medical School, with some coming from at least five other areas of the university.

• Northern premiere: From script to silver screen doesn’t usually happen this quickly. In the days leading up to this year’s Traverse City Film Festival, U-M student filmmakers are putting the finishing touches on two of their films to premiere at the week-long international film-lover gathering held along the shores of picturesque Grand Traverse Bay. The ninth annual festival will be held July 30-Aug. 4.
• Cooking up a creative solution: Penny W. Stamps Art & Design students traveled to Tanzania, where they designed and built eco-friendly stoves.
• Nam June Paik Library by N H D MInnovative collaboration: Today’s emerging talents in architecture are redefining the profession with global practices that are digitally literate and operate at multiple scales of design. This liberation of scale has allowed architects to look at issues from interiors to urban planning in new and innovative ways.

  Nahyun Hwang and David Eugin Moon—principals of N H D M, an Ann Arbor and New York City-based studio, and lecturers in architecture at the U-M Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning—are representative of this new wave of architectural thinking. An exhibit of their work, “N H D M / Nahyun Hwang + David Eugin Moon” opens July 6 at the U-M Museum of Art.

• A satiric twist: Andy Kirshner, U-M associate professor of music, art and design, has written and composed what may be the world’s first “girl meets girl” movie-musical. In the tradition of “Guys and Dolls,” but with the satirical edge of “The Colbert Report,” the new film will begin shooting in and around Ann Arbor next fall.
• Towering resonance: Take a tour of the Charles Baird Carillon, a massive musical machine made up of 43,000 pounds of bells that take up the 10 floor of the Burton Tower, located on U-M’s central campus.
• Screenshot of University of Michigan Museum of Art collection on Google’s Art Project websiteThe future of art museums: The potential impact might not be so farfetched. In a matter of several years, the Google Art Project could have the type of effect on the international art museum world and cultural literacy comparable to what “googling” has meant for Internet searchers—a greater access to information and broader understanding of the connection among cultures.

  The U-M Museum of Art joins a list of many of the most renowned international art museums participating in the Google Art Project, an online virtual journey to a front-row seat to some of the most fascinating artworks in the world. The project, launched two years ago, has grown from about a dozen museums to more than 150 museums in 40 countries. More than 40,000 high-resolution objects are available to be viewed.

• “Vessel” by Collin McRae is a video created for the Many Voices project and inspired by a conch trumpet in an embossed silver mount, 800 – 1900, from Tibet or Nepal.Diverse perspectives: The “Many Voices” project began last October when the U-M Museum of Art invited local filmmakers, artists, authors and arts enthusiasts to create two-to-three minute videos in response to works of art at the museum. The exhibit runs through the fall.

  On exhibit since spring, the “Many Voices” videos reflect a range of styles and the many voices of the authors. The multimedia storytelling project offers visitors a nonconventional approach to explore the museum collection. Videos include a range of topics, from intricate special effects to dramatic romance between two hermit crabs.

  Novice and experienced filmmakers—who range in age from 14 to 59—worked with Ann Arbor filmmakers Donald Harrison and Sharad Pateland. Harrison is the former executive director of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, one of the most prestigious experimental film festivals in the country. Pateland is an adjunct instructor of film studies at Eastern Michigan University.

For more arts and culture, visit: www.montage.umich.edu