It’s fair to say that community festivals across Dundee have struggled over the past year. Both the Stobswell Forum and the University’s own Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research (WCAIR) were determined to make Stobfest, Stobswell’s annual festival, happen in 2021. Ali Floyd, from WCAIR tells us more about the festival, held earlier this year, and some of the great cross disciplinary cultural activity happening in the University. Ali says:
“With our digital skills, we were able to help the Forum produce a variety of events; one of them showcased a fabulous new science art collaboration.
Since the Centre launch, we’ve been heavily involved in science art collaborations. For this event, we decided to pair up 2 artists with 2 of our scientists. Janice Aitken from DJCAD and Emily Fong, our artist-in-digital-residence, met Mattie Pawlowic and Susan Wyllie at the end of 2020, and it was obvious that there was masses of potential, both for creation and conversation.
Over the first months of 2021, they began collaborating, bouncing ideas around and creating new pieces. We had sharing of images, discussion of concepts, painting, drawing and, perhaps most of all, play!
In May we ran a digital panel event as a key part of Stobfest where we shared what we had been up to. We had a fantastic turnout and lots of really great questions asked from our audience. We’ve also put the video on our YouTube channel, so you can watch it at any time. We hope you get a chance to enjoy it – come for the conversation, stay for the parasite soup!
We’re delighted to say that we’re continuing to collaborate, so there’ll be a lot more work coming. Keep your eyes peeled on our website and Twitter feeds to see what else is coming.”
