Our Growing Art-Science Community

Sharing Experiences of Collaboration 

Attendees at our Sharing brought their experiences of forming collaborations and working across the art-science disciplinary boundaries. They included those who were awarded funding through our 2023 funding scheme as well as those from earlier years. We were pleased to welcome Julie Ward and Paul Chazot (Durham, Biosciences) whose Seed-funded conversations resulted in the publication of the Yorkshire Bylines article “Living Well With Pain”; and Alison Lane (Durham, Psychology) and Lady Michaelle St Vincent who met through our first round table Seed mixer in early 2023 (Image 1 (above): Dr Alison Lane (Durham, Psychology) sniffs the artwork "A portrait of the artist" by the olfactory artist Lady Michaelle St Vincent). 

Andrew Krause (Durham, Mathematical Sciences) and Mark Burden spoke about the shared inspiration they had taken from the work of Alan Turing (image below of Mark Burden's artist book) and about their project during which they had explored the use of Visual.PDE  by non-mathematicians. Fellow Project building awardee Helen Schell showed a series of artworks in development as well as sharing the virtual reality environment being developed with Ulrik Beierholm (Durham, Psychology) and Anthony Atkinson (Durham, Psychology). The attendees Margarita Staykova (Durham, Physics) and Daksha Patel, shared an update about their work towards a short video exploring artificial membranes is in its final stages.

Robert Banks (Durham, Biosciences) joined the meeting along with Judith Hurst, to introduce the 2025 Art-Science Exhibition based on images of biological structures (modelled and microscopy images) collected during Dr Banks's career. The artist Judith Hurst shared her artwork (Image 3 below), which was inspired by one of these images, a microscopy image of paramecium. For more information about the exhibition visit the web page: Art Inspired by Science: An Interactive Exhibition

(image below of the artwork shared at the event) shared the inspiration for the 2025 Art-Science Exhibition planned for the Botanic Garden. Finally Will Trewby (Durham Physics) reported on the spray paint workshop jointly funded by Physics and the BSI and ran by Lewis Hobson from Durham Spray Paints (image below). 

Find out more: 

• Yorkshire Bylines article “Living Well With Pain”
• Find out more about Visual.PDE 
• Durham Spray Paints (image below). 
•  Art Inspired by Science: An Interactive Exhibition

Find out more about our research 

• Professor Anthony Atkinson (Department of Psychology) 
• Dr Robert Banks (Department of Biosciences)
• Dr Ulrik Beierholm (Department of Psychology)
• Professor Paul Chazot (Department of Biosciences) 
• Dr Andrew Krause (Department of Mathematical Sciences)
• Dr Alison Lane (Department of Psychology) 
• Dr Margarita Staykova (Department of Physics) 

Image 2 (above): Shows Mark Burden's artist's book containing a series of portraits of Alan Turing. The portraits include layers containing images generated using Visual.PDE simulations based on Turing's approach to morphogenesis.   

Image 3 (above): Artwork created by Judith Hurst in response to microscopy images of paramecium, collected by Dr Robert Banks. The piece will form part of the Art-Science interactive exhibition to be displayed in the Durham University Botanic Garden in April 2025. Find out more here:  Art Inspired by Science: An Interactive Exhibition 

Image 4 (above): Shows artworks created by early career researchers in the Department of Physics. These were prepared during a BSI funded spray paint workshop led by artist Lewis Hobson from Durham Spray Paints (image below) and now displayed in what was once known as Physics' "boring corridor."