CREATIVITY AND CURIOSITY

Creativity and Curiosity is an art-science project co-founded and led by UK-based contemporary artists Ione Parkin and Gillian McFarland. You can read a summary of the project as at August 2022 here.

The project is an interdisciplinary collaboration with astrophysicists, cosmologists and planetary scientists from institutions and universities across the UK and internationally, including the Universities of Leicester, Cardiff, Birmingham, Imperial College London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Institute of Astrophysics (Potsdam, Germany) and the Institute of Astronomy (Cambridge).  The artists are creating a body of artwork exhibited in the UK and internationally with accompanying public engagement events: talks, panel discussions and creative workshops which invite engagement with both the art and the science.

Lead Artists:

Ione Parkin RWA, Visual Artist, Royal West of England Academician, Honorary Visiting Fellow (School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester)

Gillian McFarland, Visual Artist, Scottish Society of Artists, Art Therapist and Educator

‘Exploring Cosmological Phenomena: An Artist’s Perspective’ Ione Parkin has been invited to give the John Brown Memorial Lecture at the Royal Astronomical Society, Burlington House, London, on 4th December 2024.

Below is a selection of art work exhibited by the Creativity and Curiosity project at the University of Birmingham in 2022 as part of the Cultural Programme for the Commonwealth Games

Below is the poster for a recent Creativity & Curiosity Planetarium Show in the Western Isles of Scotland;