"We become what we repeatedly do upon what has been done to us. Working it as fertilizer, we can grow into a golden garden."
Melita Nasca
The Art and Science of A Feminine Resilience Cultivation
While lovingly raising her two young daughters to adulthood, an immigrant-student-working-single-mom has been imagin(in)g produce as edible bioart, weeds as healing nourishments and commodities as cultural heritage. Honoring her own family’s SouthEastern European-Pacific Islander-American tradition of organically cultivating within and with nature, this exhibit of new beginnings is her homage of art and science to Alma Mater University of Wisconsin-Madison’s land and its multiple histories: from Native origins to the multicultural and multigenerational garden community of sixty countries peacefully cultivating as one, by The Great Lakes shores.
Herein presented are digital images of vitamin A-rich heirlooms she fine-cultivated from seeds treasured around the world. Traditionally grown for nosh and beauty, becoming favorites to grow in space, they are furthered by leading-edge health sciences among edible flora protective against heart diseases and breast cancer, women’s leading causes of death and disability in America and worldwide. Since these existential threats to half of world’s population have also become top risk factors peri-COVID-19, A feminine-hearted cultivation could help expand our line of sight towards one resilient future.
Melita Nasca
Melita M. Nasca’s bioart and multidisciplinary science work has been internationally honored with winnings in The Lancet Highlights Competition (London, UK) and in Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology FASEB BioArt Competition (Bethesda MD, USA).
A former research fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School (Boston MA, USA), she is a biomedical doctorate alumna of The Texas Medical Center’s University of Texas Health Science and MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston TX, USA) upon earning her imaging physics masters degree from The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health while-as a single mom-raising her two young daughters to the family’s second generation of women’s STEM leadership.
Her original scientific research and practice promoting in the US and internationally women’s, youth’s and minorities’ wellbeing-including food, nutrition and fitness, health-related quality of life, and performance has been published in international journals such as The Lancet, JAMA’s network and American Journal of Cardiology and referenced by leading medical institutions and organizations including Japan Atherosclerosis Society Guidelines for Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases of the country with the highest functional longevity in the world.
Wow, what a fabulous combination of art, science, cultural knowledge and educationally significant meanings. Thank you. I plan to follow your art.
Congratulations my friend, Dr. Melita Nasca. I am very proud to be your friend. You are an amazing woman.
Many congrats dear Meli, so beautifully to weave science and art together and produce a balm for both mind and soul. To many more future creations!
Wow, proud to be your cousin Melita, salutations from Romania!