Creativity and Curiosity is an international art-science project led by UK contemporary visual artists, Gillian McFarland SSA and Ione Parkin RWA, in connection with astrophysicists, cosmologists and planetary scientists. The artists have developed a body of work exploring the rich imagery of space, engaging in creative dialogue with space researchers and gaining new insights into the dynamic forces of the universe. This artist-led project explores the nature of interdisciplinarity within the practice of visual thinking.
Responses from collaborating astronomers are gathered and shown next to the individual artworks during project exhibitions, revealing insights into the art-science dialogue. The artists are expressing a lateral, not literal, response to the scientific research - a physical, tactile experience rather than an explanation. Parallels of process and enquiry have emerged between the artists and scientists - an excitement about uncertainty, ambiguity and anomaly - a desire not just to observe but to look beyond.
Collaborating artists have included Daniela de Paulis (OPTICKS Moonbounce, Netherlands), Kate Bernstein (bookbinder and printmaker), Graeme Hawes (glass-blower), Colette Rayner (digital animation artist, Netherlands) and Alison Lochhead (sculptor).
Project highlights include:
Exhibition at the University of Birmingham as one of the selected highlights of the University’s Cultural Programme in partnership with the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games
Exhibition and co-curation of talks at the Hebridean Dark Skies Festival 2020, An Lanntair, Stornoway
Interdisciplinary Studies Conference 2019, University of Amsterdam
Exhibition at Glasgow Science Centre 2019
‘Marvellous Moons’ at Peter Harrison Planetarium, Royal Observatory Greenwich
Exhibition and talks at Zeiss-Grossplanetarium, Berlin Science Week 2018
Exhibition at National Space Centre, Leicester 2018
The project has been awarded funding by the Royal Astronomical Society, Hope Scott Trust, Wellcome Trust (through the University of Leicester) and Arts Council England.
