Bridges 2025 Exhibition of Mathematical Art, Craft, and Design
Jacqueline Burke, Jeff Suzuki
Artists
Jeff Suzuki
Professor of Mathematics
CUNY Brooklyn
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Statement
We are a team of an artist and a mathematician united by our love of history and our drive to make things. Our collaborations arise from dinner-table discussions on how math affects the common person and how math can be expressed in simple artifacts of a person’s life. This year, we ask where STEM fields would be if people had been allies of the LGBT+ community in the past, and how far the human race could go if people are true allies now and in the future.
Artworks
The Stand Up and Be Counted Abacus
20.0 x 23.0 x 17.0 cm
Flame-worked soda-lime glass beads, reclaimed wood box, paper, paint, & glue
2025
This piece is modeled after a common Chinese abacus, with 5 beads below the bar and 2 above. This work is an homage to Alan Turing (1912-1954). The beads below the bar, in the colors of the Philadelphia Pride Flag, spell Turing’s name in a 5-bit binary code, with the solid beads representing 0. The top 2 rows are in black & white, symbolizing allyship to the LGBT+ community. The exterior is covered with a design based on Turing’s work on phyllotaxis, and adorned with excerpts from his work on computable numbers and cryptanalysis of Enigma messages.