SVA continues its series highlighting some of the many outstanding projects by 2016 Alumni Scholarship Award winners. Next up is BFA Fine Arts student Andrew Joseph Cziraki on his Bornless One project, for which he’s collected holy water from churches in New York City in an attempt to find connections between science, religion and the identities of local communities.

Tell us about your project.
Bornless One is a project in which I gather holy water from the fonts of churches located in New York City and test for metagenomic information located in it. By doing these tests, I am trying to convey a connection between the communities and the churches. Using molecular biology, I am finding remnants of DNA strands left in the fonts and piecing together a picture of the microbiomes and of the users of the fonts. Religion has been and will continue to be a powerful force in humanity. I am using science and art to create a bridge between science and religion.

What inspired the idea?
The power of religion over humanity and the ability religion has to create, destroy and inspire. I am curious to find associations between religion and nature that I can quantify using science.

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