Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter
1ModernModern Mathematics
Mathematics
Communication —Focus
Communications—An
AnAsian
Asian
Focus
Andreas Daniel Matt, Antonia S J S Mey and Bianca Violet

Andreas Daniel Matt, Antonia S J S Mey and Bianca Violet
Abstract. The article introduces IMAGINARY, a projectthat started out as a single mathematics exhibition andhas since grown into a full non-profit organisation overthe last ten years. It tries to address questions suchas: ‘How can we best communicate mathematics?’, with interactive and stimulating exhibitions, online resources,and exploring any imaginable way to communicate
mathematical concepts. One of its defining features
is that it also addresses current mathematics research
topics. Here we will give an overview of past events,and exhibitions organised by IMAGINARY with a focus
on Asia, as well as to give a how to guide to how
future mathematics related exhibitions and events canbe organised and implemented.

1. Introduction
How do we best communicate mathematics to a broad
audience? The last 20 years have seen many initiatives for communicating science and mathematics [1]. While initially the hurdle of ‘Why should wecommunicate mathematics?’, had to be overcome. It
has since been clear that we should now focus on
different ways mathematics communication canbe achieved. The following article draws from ten
years of experience in designing, organising anddisseminating interactive mathematics exhibitions
under the umbrella project called IMAGINARY.
The article has taken inspiration from [2] and [3].
2. IMAGINARY

How It All Started

IMAGINARY started as a travelling exhibition
for the German Year of Mathematics in 2008. It
grew as part of the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach (MFO), initiated and pushedforward by the former MFO director Gert-Martin
Greuel and Andreas Matt, the now managing
director of the IMAGINARY non-profit organisation. The initial exhibition, IMAGINARY —Through the Eyes of Mathematics, contained acollection of state-of-the-art mathematical visualisations and interactive programs. The flagshipof the exhibition was a program called SURFER,
which interactively explores the relationship ofpolynomial equations and 3-dimensional shapes.

The 3-dimensional shapes represent the solutionof these polynomial equations [4].
In 2013 at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris,
France, the IMAGINARY online platform —imaginary.org — was launched, hosting a varietyof online resources for mathematics communication, including two of the IMAGINARY exhibitions [5]. This is also the place to find all resources
to stage your own exhibition as discussed inSec. 5. Over the last ten years IMAGINARY exhibitions have been put together in collaboration
with local partners in more than 160 cities, 55
countries and 28 languages. The Google Maps
markers in Fig. 1 represent all places in the world
where an IMAGINARY exhibition or related event
has taken place. To date, there are more than ten
permanent IMAGINARY museum installations,see for example the algebraic geometry exhibition
based on SURFER at the Museum of Mathematics
in New York City, USA, in the left panel of Fig. 2.
At the newly opened Ramanujan Math Park in
the Agastya Campus, India, there are several interactive touchscreen stations with a collection ofsmall mathematical apps and games called Mathto Touch — a collaboration of IMAGINARY withJürgen Richter-Gebert [6]. One of them is shownin the right panel of Fig. 2. IMAGINARY also hasa permanent exhibition at the Deutsches Museumin Munich, Germany, one of the world’s oldest
and largest science and technology museums. The
success of the project has then lead to the creationof the non-profit organisation in 2016, paving theway for the expansion of the ideas behind IMAGINARY further and being able to accommodate
the growing team, aspiring to communicate mathematics. With its strong connection to and theroots at the MFO, the MFO is still a shareholderof the newly created non-profit organisation. The
creation of the new organisation was possible
with generous funds from the Leibnitz Association. While still part of the MFO, the project
was funded amongst other by the Klaus TschiraFoundation.

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Fig. 1. Map indicating all locations with past IMAGINARY related events in the world.

Fig. 2. Left: An algebraic geometry exhibit created in collaboration with IMAGINARY at the Museum of Mathematics in New York City,
USA. Right: An interactive touchscreen station with a collection of 16 small mathematical apps and games at Ramanujan Math Parkin the Agastya Campus, India.

3. IMAGINARY

An Asian Perspective

Since so many IMAGINARY activities have takenplace over the years it is difficult to adequately
talk about them, but it is worth mentioning a
few of the projects that have taken place in Asiaand are currently planned. The first IMAGINARY
event in East Asia was held in 2012 in Suzhou,
China, in collaboration with Xian Jiaotong Liverpool University (XJTLU). The exhibition included
several algebraic 3-D sculptures, a large collectionof geometric images with English and Chinese
descriptions, as well as five digital interactive2

December 2018, Volume 8 No 1

stations. The exhibition was accompanied by animations, slide shows and a catalog with bilingual explanations. During the exhibition, evening
events included the showing of various movies
on mathematics. Four years later, a new and evenbigger IMAGINARY exhibition was on display at
XJTLU as part of the 10th anniversary celebration of the university, see Fig. 3. Several satellite
events took place, such as hands-on workshops
on polyhedra and the SURFER software as wellas general presentations and introductions to thework of IMAGINARY, which were held at different schools affiliated with XJTLU, see Fig. 4.

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3

Fig.Fig.
3. IMAGINARY
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4. IMAGINARY
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4Fig. 5. Left: Mathematics of Planet Earth exhibition at Bangalore, India. Right: IMAGINARY exhibition at the Vietnam Institute forAdvanced Study in Mathematics in Hanoi.

Fig. 6. NIMS-IMAGINARY at the ICM in Seoul, South Korea.

mathematical image gallery and 3D sculptures.
The exhibition was attached to the congress, however accessible to the general public as well.
Trained guides of the NIMS team, as well as of
the international IMAGINARY team jointly gave
introductions to the mathematical background ofeach exhibit and guided more than 10,000 visitors
through the exhibition, among them many local
visitors and schools. Afterwards, all exhibits werepermanently installed at the NIMS headquartersin Daejeon, South Korea. Admission is free andguided tours are offered, making it especiallyattractive for school classes.
In December 2015, the first IMAGINARY exhibition took place in Taiwan, see Fig. 7. It wasorganised in collaboration with the MathematicalSociety of the Republic of China (TMS) and heldat the National Science and Technology Museumin Kaohsiung. The exhibition presented a variety

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of mathematical content from IMAGINARY, including interactive software, large format picture
galleries, films and 3D sculptures. Moreover, local
experts contributed their works combining mathematics and arts to the exhibition, such as beaded
sculptures, paper artwork and fractal paintingsof traditional Chinese landscapes. A part of thelarge space of the professional exhibition setup
was reserved for weekly workshops by local experts offered to the general public, see examples
in Fig. 8. Additionally, IMAGINARY conducted
several mathematics workshops on the SURFER
software at high schools and different universities
around Taiwan.
In 2016, the successful exhibition travelled toother Taiwanese venues, such as the National
Taiwan Science Education Center in Taipei and
the National Chiayi University. A small-scaled
version of the exhibition is still travelling throughAsia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter
5Fig. 7. IMAGINARY exhibition at National Science and Technology Museum in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Left: beaded sculpture by Bih-Yaw
Jin. Right: SURFER software.

Fig. 8. Workshops accompanying the IMAGINARY exhibition at different venues in Taiwan. Left: polyhedra. middle: ZomeTool. Right:
SURFER.

Taiwan, visiting local high schools in less urban
areas, with the aim to promote the developmentof mathematics in various aspects, to raise thepublic awareness of the subject, and to connect
the beauty of mathematics with daily lives andarts.
In 2017, several tie-dye workshops took placein Indonesia using images of algebraic surfaces
created with the SURFER software and transferring them onto textiles like cotton fabric using
traditional tie-dye techniques, see the left panel ofFig. 9. These workshops took place at the Facultyof Science and Mathematics at the University
Kristen Satya Wacana as well as during a STEAM
themed summer camp in Agrowisata Salatiga,
where STEAM refers to Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics.
Another IMAGINARY initiative worth mentioning is the Science Spaces project — a collaboration with the German language program of theGoethe Institutes all over the world [7]. One of
the first workshops of this project took place inDecember 2017 in Vietnam: teams of high school
students from three schools in Ho Chi Minh City
together with guides from IMAGINARY developed science exhibits, which are now travelling ina public exhibition. Experiments and exhibits are
related to the STEAM subjects. Modern aspects,
such as the interplay with art, sustainability, andscience communication were examined as well(see the right panel of Fig. 9).
IMAGINARY will continue and strengthen thecollaboration with the Ramanujan Math Park in
India, already mentioned in Sec. 2, which was
inaugurated on December 22, 2017, at its 172-acre
Creativity Campus situated in Kuppam. Having
drawn inspiration from the extraordinary works
of Indian Mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan,
the park aims to provide a space to promotelearning, exploration, and discovery of ideas thatconvey a sense of the ubiquity of Math. By giving
hands-on learning experience of math concepts, itaims to increase enthusiasm as well as reduce andeliminate obstacles in learning math, especiallyamong economically underprivileged children [8].
4. IMAGINARY
World

and the Rest of the

IMAGINARY did not only travel to Asia, but its
successful travelling exhibition lead to many fruitful collaborations around the world. An example

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6Fig. 9. Left: Tie dye Workshop in Indonesia. Right: Science Spaces Workshop in Vietnam.

Fig. 10. Left: Pi-day celebrations in Tanzania. Right: AIMS-IMAGINARY exhibition and workshop in South Africa.

of an early collaboration is with Russia, where
during the German–Russian Year of Education,
Science and Innovation in 2011–2012 an IMAGINARY exhibition was shown in ten different
Russian cities. IMAGINARY is also particularly
engaged in mathematics communication in Africawith its tight collaboration with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), in order to popularise mathematics communication on
the African continent. As a first event, a pop-up
exhibition was shown for the Pi-day celebrations
in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in March 2014. Thiswas followed up with a co-organised mathematics
communication workshop and exhibition in CapeTown, South Africa, see Fig. 10 [9]. Since then,events and exhibitions have been organised in
Senegal, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Democratic
Republic of Congo, Liberia, and Rwanda.
Whole units of local IMAGINARY teams were
established in several countries, e.g. Uruguay,
France, and Turkey in addition to the before

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mentioned units in Asian countries. Besides organising exhibitions, IMAGINARY activities also
include school workshops, conferences, teacher
trainings, etc. The most complete idea of how
diverse and well spread events and exhibitions
is best illustrated by the world map (Fig. 1).
5. How to Stage your Own Exhibition
So what is so particular about IMAGINARY and
its global success in acting as a hub to transfer
mathematical knowledge to the general public?
One can attribute three key features to the project,while may be not unique, are definitely defining.
(1) The project tries to address current mathematical research as opposed to many otherprojects. Its close ties to the MFO and otherresearch institutions facilitate this.
(2) It is international and multilingual in termsof collaboration, but also within the team ofcontributors.

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Fig. 11. Holo-Math presentation in France, Photo by Camille Cier.

(3) The projects runs based on a free, open
access, and open source policy.
A further aim and appeal of IMAGINARY is tobe as timely as possible, providing resources for
touch screens and tablets, a modern and sleek webinterface and the constant strive to move withmodern innovations. This mixes the frontiers ofmathematics research with state-of-the-art mathcommunication. At the moment, IMAGINARY is
looking for additional Augmented, Virtual and
Mixed Reality exhibits [10], and is also participating in the international Holo-Math project, which
will produce immersive live experiences in mathematical sciences using the latest mixed reality
technology. New forms of augmented visualisation and interaction are core features. The experiences are presented in science museums/centers
and at special events. They are targeted at groupsof 20 participants led by human guides and virtual avatars [11]. In different Holo-Math experiences, participants will be able to play, discover,experiment, and learn about science history andcurrent research. The first pilot experience on
the topic of Brownian Motion has already beenpresented in a special event on October 17, 2017,at the Palais de la découverte in Paris, France, seeFig. 11.
Let us now look at how one can actually organise an exhibition from the available resources.
There are three or four obvious questions thatneed addressing, when creating a mathematics
exhibition:
Where should the exhibition take place?
• What should be shown?
• What is the budget for putting on the exhibition?
• How long should the event/exhibition go onfor?
•

Choosing the venue: The dates of when the event
happens is often defined by the available venue
and should be the first thing to be chosen. The
choice of venue is important, as it may end up
dictating a few things. How accessible is thevenue? How big is the venue? These questions
will eventually define the audience most likely
to visit the exhibition. If a university venue ina room far away from general traffic is chosen,
the exhibition will be visited by fewer people andless likely to be visited by random members of
the general public than if it was installed outside

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8Fig. 12. Different venue options (right image: courtesy of Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation).

at a central square of a town. You should choose
your venues that suit your desired target audienceand can be anything from colleges, universities,
art galleries, schools, public squares, train stations, shopping malls, or bank foyers, see different venue examples in Fig. 12. Ideally a cosponsorship can be agreed upon by the venue inorder for it to be available free of charge. As forthe budget; $2000 should be sufficient to get you
started with an exhibition, but going all the way
up to $200,000 will obviously generate quite different results in terms of appeal and ease to draw
in audiences. In the end expenses will dependon the use of paid staff, or volunteers, numberof exhibits and type of exhibits. Trying to find asponsor is worthwhile or using a host institution
such as a university may partly cover required
costs. Sponsors can be found in the private andpublic sectors, such as government sponsorship,e.g. the Ministry of Research and Education inGermany, or banks and high tech companies andphilanthropic organisations.
Choosing the exhibits: Exhibits can be categorised
into four different types:
Computer program: An interactive software
exhibit running on a computer or hand held
device• Hands-on: An interactive exhibit requiring
physical manipulation• Film: A short film in a documentary or artisticstyle on a given topic, projected onto a surface, shown on a TV or in a dedicated cinema
room• Gallery: A collection of images and sculptures
on display to be viewed but not interacted
with.
•

A combination of the four different types will
ensure that a visitor will be fully emerged in
the exhibition, as different stimuli will appeal

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to different people. The online platform www.
imaginary.org hosts more than 100 potential exhibits that can be used free of charge in yourown exhibition, with particular focus on current
research topics. You will need to pay respect tothe individual licenses of the chosen exhibits, e.g.
mention the author.
In the following we will look at SURFER [4],the initial flagship software, in a bit more detail.
Surfer is a real-time ray tracer of algebraic surfaces. The program renders the solution of a polynomial equation in real time. The visitor can interactively change the polynomial equations andexplore the available solutions. The resulting surface, which represents all x, y and z coordinates,that satisfy the polynomial to equal zero, can berotated, zoomed in and out of, and its colour canbe changed. This interaction fascinates and casually transmits geometric intuition and mathematical understanding. SURFER comes with a set ofgallery images and their corresponding equations
that are often a nice starting point. Furthermore,
it has an extensive tutorial section explaining how
the program works and how the shapes display
relate to the equations. Lastly, it also contains asection of so called world record surfaces, which
directly connects to ongoing research topics inthe field of algebraic topology in mathematics. It
is possible for visitors to take their own createdsurfaces home, if a printer is connected to theprogram [3]. Often times, it creates a nice synergy to accompany the interactive program withgallery style prints of surfaces or even 3D printed
surfaces. In the past the software has been used
to stage online image competition, disseminatedby popular newspaper and journals [12].
A large selection of content is available for thedifferent types of exhibits. There is one exhibit,that does not really fit well into any of the above
categories. This is an interactive station, which

Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter
9Fig. 13. The SURFER user interface.

Fig. 14. Submission examples from international SURFER competitions.

lets you choose among the library of “snapshotsof modern mathematics” [13]. These snapshots
are short articles written by participants of workshops organised at the MFO addressing current
research in all fields of mathematics. The snapshots are edited and also available online [14].
The “snapshots” can be loaded onto a touchscreen
station and become appealing and easily browseable. Again if attached to a printer, visitors can be
encouraged to take printouts home or just receive
them as an email.
Once the choice of venue, budget and exhibits
is worked out, the actual realization of the exhibition is the next step. This requires to generate theexhibits (e.g. print galleries, acquire touch screensfor media stations or produce a hands-on exhibit).
Local venues such as universities may have sometechnology available that can be loaned otherwise
it is important to budget for the acquisition ofcomputers or touchscreen. Last but not least, it
is important to sufficiently publicise your event.

A mixture of online (e.g. social media channels)
and offline (posters, flyers) publicity is usually
useful. Again the online platform can provide
templates for flyers and posters facilitating thistask. Often media work can be further assisted byusing the public relations office of your institution
or through the assistance of IMAGINARY’s media
resources. The last thing that needs to be plannedis the actual running of the exhibition, during
the period it is meant to be on display. Is there
going to be a public opening ceremony? Who isgoing to look after the venue, if no arrangements
are made by the venue itself? Will you provide
guides who are available to explain mathematical content in more detail? Are there going to
be dedicated school visits with tours? Generally
having explainers available on site has provento enhance the exhibition experience significantly.
Again there is material accessible online that willallow for the training of tutors and guides. If
required, and the budget allows, IMAGINARY

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10Fig. 15. Snapshots Slider — interactive station.

team members can help with the training and also
support you in all other steps in the organisationand production of your exhibition. These services
will need to be agreed on in a contract establishedin the organisational phase of the exhibition. If
you want to organise an IMAGINARY exhibition
and would like support, feel free to contact us.
Once the exhibition period is over it may benice to reuse some of the printed material in amore permanent fashion, for example decorating
the corridors of your mathematics department. If
you organise an exhibition, please announce yourevent to the online listing of all exhibitions at
imaginary.org/events. There you can also find out
about all current exhibitions and museum installations, including ones happening in the coming
months in New Zealand, Uzbekistan, Germany,
Rwanda — and may be a place near you!
6. How to create your own exhibit
Another unique aspect of IMAGINARY is thecommunity approach. While it is possible to justuse the provided content online, partners areusually encouraged to make contributions to theexhibition themselves. This contribution can be10

December 2018, Volume 8 No 1

simply a translation to a new language for oneof the exhibits shown, or actually create novel
exhibition content. Turning your own research
into an exhibit, may not be as scary and daunting
as it sounds. Over the years, a collection of ideas
and practices on how to transfer mathematicalknowledge into an exhibition has been establishedwith IMAGINARY. Tools are available to create high resolution images, cameras for creatingstop motion, introductions on how to generate
3D printable content. You can then choose tocontribute your exhibit to the wider community,by making required information available on the
online platform under an open license. However,this still means a required acknowledgement of
the original author. One way we try and motivate
the community to provide new exhibits is runningcompetitions for new exhibits. IMAGINARY hasdone so in the past, which lead to the creationof the Math of Planet Earth exhibition, with a firstround of competitions in 2013 and a second roundin 2017 [15]. With the MathLapse competitionin 2016 [16], IMAGINARY has launched a new
educational and artistic format for short films andanimations called MathLapse to highlight the link
between mathematics and real-world phenomena.

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Fig. 16. Impression of the exhibition “The Taste of Mathematics”, courtesy of Pedro Reyes Dueñas.

Fig. 17. Conveyor belt design at the Mathematikon shopping center in Heidelberg, Germany.

The name MathLapse is inspired by the timelapsetechnique in physics: By re-scaling time, phenomena are visualised which we cannot observe
directly. Watch out for future competitions, where
your exhibit idea may even result in a cash prize.
Also not all ideas have to be strictly just communicating mathematical content. IMAGINARY
is trying to bridge between math and arts as wellas communicate mathematics, so even if your idea
seems outlandish we would love to hear about it.
For example, in 2012 surfaces that could easily begenerated with SURFER were transformed into an
exhibition called “The Taste of Mathematics”, seeFig. 16. IMAGINARY also permanently integrated
mathematical content into a shopping center in

Heidelberg, Germany, called The Mathematikon,
which opened in 2016. Main features are a mathematical image gallery, conveyor belt designs (seeFig. 17), a multi touchscreen station (see the middle panel of Fig. 12), riddles in the restroom,
and at the bakery, classic quotes, as well as atemporary shop window display [17].
Inspired by the IMAGINARY open air exhibition (see the left panel of Fig. 12) in Ljubljana, Slovenia, organised by the MATHEMA institution for popularisation of mathematics in2015, the renown local design company Draž produced mathematical knitwear for their Fall Winter2016/17 collection. Draž processed the proposed
visualisations of algebraic surfaces, adapted andDecember 2018, Volume 8 No 1

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12Fig. 18. Lady’s coat, part of the Draž collection.

applied them to knitted textures. The result isa colourful collection with strong graphical elements and uneven silhouettes which follow individual knitted textures, see Fig. 18.
At the moment, IMAGINARY is looking for
new exhibits for our upcoming exhibition onmathematics and music, explaining, demonstrating and displaying the fascinating relation between the two fields. We will connect music withmodern mathematics and its applications, withartificial intelligence, big data, and neuroscience.
Installations, interactive exhibits, and physicalexperiences will demonstrate the inseparable
interlocking of both subjects. The exhibition ispresented by the Heidelberg Laureate Forum
Foundation and will open in spring 2019 in Heidelberg, Germany, at the Mathematics and Informatics Station called MAINS.
7. Conclusions
We gave an comprehensive overview of what
IMAGINARY is and outlined steps that allow you
to organise your own IMAGINARY exhibition or
event. However, there are different ways to get
involved with the IMAGINARY community. The
IMAGINARY Conference on Open and Collaborative Communication of Mathematical Research isan interdisciplinary gathering of mathematicians,

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December 2018, Volume 8 No 1

communicators, and interested professionals whowish to discuss and work together on current
issues of communication and knowledge transfer
in mathematics. It took place in Berlin, Germany,in 2016 and is planned to be a biannual event,with the next IMAGINARY conference taking
place in December 2018 in Montevideo, Uruguay.
In contrast to a classical conference, we use aparticipative and collaborative approach in orderto advance new ideas, bring forward concrete
results and help shape the future of mathematics
communication. The program consists of talks
by community members as well as workshops,
which are run in parallel. Participants work insmall groups of up to 15 on specific projects,
which can be achieved in the given time frameof three afternoons. Results are shown in a publicpresentation at the end of the conference andoffered under an open license afterwards. TheseIMAGINARY conferences unite teams from allover the world and are a unique opportunity. You
can sign up for the conference newsletter andfind more detailed information on the upcoming
conference in Uruguay on the conference website [18].
If you want to be informed about current
mathematics exhibitions or trends in mathematics communication, please join the Mathematics
Communication Network [19]. You can subscribe

Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter13

to its newsletter and participate in joint projects
and conferences. There are many extraordinary
projects around the world that bring the beautyof mathematics closer to the general public, andeach one of these has very valuable experiences
worthwhile to be shared. We would be happy towork on joint ideas and to find out more about
your experiences in mathematics communication.
References[1] E. Jensen and R. Holliman, Investigating science
communication to inform science outreach andpublic engagement, in R. Holliman, E. Whitelegg,
E. Scanlon, S. Smidt, and J. Thomas, eds, Investigating Science Communication in the Information
Age: Implications for Public Engagement and Popular Media, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK,
September 2009, pp. 55–71.
[2] A. D. Matt, Imaginary — A how-to guide for mathexhibitions, Notices of the AMS, 64 (2017) 368–373.
[3] A. D. Matt and B. Violet, Collaborative mathematics communication — Experiences and examples,
13th International Congress on Mathematical Education Hamburg, 24–31 July 2016, 2016.
[4] Surfer software, https://imaginary.org/program/surfer, Accessed: 09/02/2018.
[5] Imaginary — Open mathematics, www.imaginary.
org, Accessed: 09/02/2018.
[6] Math to touch, https://imaginary.org/program/
math-to-touch, Accessed: 09/02/2018.
[7] Science spaces, https://imaginary.org/project/science-spaces, Accessed: 09/02/2018.

[8] Ramanujan math park press release, https://
imaginary.org/sites/default/files/ramanujan
math park press release.pdf, Accessed: 09/02/
2018.
[9] AIMS, Imaginary exhibition and workshop,
Newsletter of the African Institute for Mathematical
Sciences South Africa, 11 (2014) 1–4.
[10] Call for augmented, virtual, and mixed reality
exhibits for open mathematics, https://imaginary.
org/news/call-for-xr-augmented-virtual-andmixed-reality-exhibits-for-open-mathematics, Accessed: 09/09/2018.
[11] Holo-math project page, http://holo-math.org/,
Accessed 09/02/2017.
[12] Ch. Pöppe, Mathematik-kunst-wettbewerb: dieergebnisse, Spektrum der Wissenschaft, 8 (2008)
94–97.
[13] A. Cooper and C. Cederbaum, Snapshots of modern mathematics from oberwolfach: Writing aboutmathematics for a wide audience, AMS Notices,63(8) (2016) 914.
[14] Snapshots of modern mathematics from oberwolfach, https://imaginary.org/snapshots, Accessed:
09/02/2018.
[15] MPE winners press release, https://imaginary.
org/sites/default/files/mpe press release 0.pdf,
2017. Accessed: 09/02/2018.
[16] Mathlapse, http://ic16.imaginary.org/
mathlapse/, 2016. Accessed: 09/02/2018.
[17] B. Violet and A. D. Matt, Mathematikon: A mathematical shopping center, Proceedings of Bridges 2016
Conference in Jyväskylä, 2016.
[18] Imaginary conference 2018 website, http://ic18.
imaginary.org, Accessed: 09/02/2018.
[19] Mathematics communication network, imaginary.
org/network, Accessed: 09/02/2018.

IMAGINARY gGmbH, Mittenwalder Str. 48, 10961 Berlin, Germany
andreas.matt@imaginary.org

IMAGINARY gGmbH, Mittenwalder Str. 48, 10961 Berlin, Germany
EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3FJ, United Kingdom
antonia.mey@imaginary.org

IMAGINARY gGmbH, Mittenwalder Str. 48, 10961 Berlin, Germany
bianca.violet@imaginary.org

December 2018, Volume 8 No 1

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Asia Pacific Mathematics Newsletter

Andreas Daniel Matt
IMAGINARY gGmbH, Mittenwalder Str. 48, 10961 Berlin, Germany
andreas.matt@imaginary.org
Co-founder and currently director of IMAGINARY, Andreas Daniel Matt worked
as mathematics communicator at the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut
Oberwolfach from 2007 until 2016. He studied mathematics and computerscience and did his PhD in mathematics in machine learning at the Universityof Innsbruck and the University of Buenos Aires. He curated the MiMa, amuseum for minerals and mathematics in Oberwolfach, and is a memberof the Raising Public Awareness Committee of the European MathematicalSociety. He has received several prizes for his outreach activities, including
the Media Prize of the German Mathematical Society in 2013 (together with
Gert-Martin Greuel) for the IMAGINARY project.

Antonia Mey
IMAGINARY gGmbH, Mittenwalder Str. 48, 10961 Berlin, Germany
EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road,
Edinburgh EH9 3FJ, United Kingdom
antonia.mey@imaginary.org
Antonia Mey works as a freelancer maths communicator and project manager
for the non-profit organisation IMAGINARY. She obtained a PhD in Physics at
the University of Nottingham in 2013 followed by a research postdoc at theFreie Universität in Berlin in the Department of Mathematics and Computerscience, where she discovered her interest in professional Mathematics
communication and public engagement and joined the IMAGINARY projectin 2014. Since then she has helped with the organisation as well as managed various IMAGINARY exhibitions and other activities predominantly on
the African continent. She is also an active researcher at the University in
Edinburgh in the field of computer aided drug design.

Bianca Violet
IMAGINARY gGmbH, Mittenwalder Str. 48, 10961 Berlin, Germany
bianca.violet@imaginary.org
Chief Creative Officer at IMAGINARY, an international non-profit organisationfor open communication of modern mathematics with its base in Berlin. She
studied mathematics at Technische Universität Berlin, and did her masters in
2009. In addition, she is a certified film editor and combines both fields bycreating several award-winning animations and visualisations. Since 2017,
she is the chair of the Bridges short film festival. At IMAGINARY, she curates
and organises exhibitions, is responsible for content development and communications, stages competitions, leads workshops and teacher trainings aswell as other mathematics outreach events.

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December 2018, Volume 8 No 1