Contaduría Creativa (2025): Art, Biotechnology, and Creative Education Dataset

Description

This dataset documents Contaduría Creativa (2025), an interdisciplinary educational and artistic initiative developed by undergraduate students from the Public Accounting program at Unidades Tecnológicas de Santander (UTS), Colombia, within the framework of an interinstitutional alliance with the Bacteriology and Clinical Laboratory Program of Universidad de Santander (UDES) and Fundación Eureka Soluciones. This collaboration enabled effective biotechnology knowledge transfer, specialized academic support, and responsible application of scientific approaches to the creative process. Contaduría Creativa was conceived as an educational innovation experience aimed at integrating art and science as a pedagogical strategy to foster interdisciplinary learning, creativity, and social appropriation of scientific knowledge within accounting education. Through guided training, students explored fundamental biotechnology concepts and applied them to create artistic works. A central component of the exhibition was agar-based bioart, designed to represent emblematic urban spaces and the local biodiversity of Bucaramanga, Colombia. Through this category, students produced artistic representations of public parks, strategic urban locations, and biodiversity associated with each area, using agar as an expressive medium and living biological processes as tools for creativity. Complementary artistic categories included plastic art, photography, artificial intelligence applied to photography, sculptures, and drawings, resulting in a total of 87 documented artworks. The dataset compiles a complete documentary record of the event, including high-resolution images of the artworks, photographic and audiovisual documentation of the exhibition process, structured curatorial catalogues, and digital exhibition materials. The dataset organization ensures traceability between artworks, descriptive metadata, and visual records using structured catalogue files. All dataset contents, including artwork titles, descriptions, catalogues, digital exhibition materials, and event documentation, are provided in both Spanish and English, facilitating accessibility and reuse in national and international academic contexts. The dataset aligns with open science and FAIR principles and is intended to support research in educational innovation, interdisciplinary and STEAM-based learning, and teaching, outreach, and science communication initiatives. Ethical considerations were addressed through informed consent procedures, authorship recognition, and anonymization when required, ensuring compliance with academic ethical standards and personal data protection. This dataset serves as an open resource for researchers, educators, and practitioners interested in art–science integration, biotechnology education, creative pedagogy, and documentation of interdisciplinary educational experiences in higher education.

Steps to reproduce

The Contaduría Creativa (2025) dataset documents an interdisciplinary educational and artistic experience developed through a structured documentation process. Its production follows a narrative and curatorial approach similar to datasets such as BacteArte and GenArt, emphasizing pedagogical design, artistic creation, and systematic documentation, rather than experimental protocols. The initiative was conceived and led by the Unidades Tecnológicas de Santander (UTS) as an educational innovation strategy within the Public Accounting program. From its initial design, the project was developed within an interinstitutional alliance with the Bacteriology and Clinical Laboratory Program of the Universidad de Santander (UDES) and Fundación Eureka Soluciones, enabling biotechnology knowledge transfer, specialized academic support, and incorporation of basic biosecurity and ethical considerations into the creative process. Prior to artwork production, participating students completed introductory training in biotechnology through the online course “Exploring Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology Through Art” (Udemy). This training provided foundational concepts in biotechnology and bioart, which informed subsequent artistic development. After completing the training phase, students freely selected one of the established artistic categories: agar-based bioart, plastic art, photography, artificial intelligence applied to photography, sculpture, or drawing. The agar-based bioart component constituted the central axis of the exhibition and was developed with academic and technical support from the Bacteriology and Clinical Laboratory Program of UDES, in collaboration with Fundación Eureka Soluciones. The artworks focused on representing emblematic urban spaces and urban biodiversity in Bucaramanga, Colombia. Following artistic production, all artworks underwent basic curatorial review and documentary registration. Each artwork was assigned a unique sequential numeric identifier and descriptive metadata, including the title, authorship, artistic category, and curatorial description. This information was consolidated in structured CSV/Excel catalogue files, ensuring traceability between artworks and their corresponding visual and audiovisual records. During the exhibition setup and public display, systematic photographic and audiovisual documentation captured the artwork, exhibition layout, and public interaction. A bilingual digital exhibition (Spanish and English) was developed, including curatorial documents, image galleries, audiovisual materials, and an interactive web-based map for the agar art category to visualize the spatial relationships between artworks and urban locations. Ethical considerations were addressed through informed consent procedures, authorship recognition, and anonymization, where required. Finally, all materials were organized within a clearly defined directory structure and prepared for publication under a CC BY 4.0 license.

Institutions

• Unidades Tecnológicas de Santander

  Santander Department, Bucaramanga
• Universidad De Santander

  Santander Department, Bucaramanga

Categories

Funders

• Fundación Eureka Soluciones

  Grant ID: Fundación Eureka Soluciones

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