What happens when an artist and a scientist meet through the time of Covid? Two radical spirits bond to explore the common orbital of art and science from a unique perspective.
This exhibition runs until April 8 2023 in LifeSpace. Discover more and book your free slot to see the show at the WCAIR website.
Long-time readers of our Culture Blog may remember our piece on Emily Fong. During some of the darkest days of Covid, she became artist not-quite-in-residence at the Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research (WCAIR). Since that time, the project has continued to grow and develop, and Emily became a true resident of the School of Life Sciences – quite literally.
As we all began to emerge from our various lockdowns, Emily was ready with a plan. She had spent a great deal of time talking with scientists, then walking the Kinghorn coastline reflecting and digesting. During that time, she had been struck by the almost-molecular shapes of the crab-pots washed up on the shore. After a period of collecting and considering, she had come to realise that she was not the right kind of cell to process these materials – she needed more specialised, scientific cells. From this, she developed a series of workshops, a Laboratory Art Binge. Scientists from WCAIR were invited to interact with this material as a team of specialised cells and transform it.
These workshops were fascinating. Some used the materials to tell scientific stories, while others worked hard to repair them to be useful again. Other groups made much more abstract creations, but all were glorious pieces of collaborative sculpture – as is any newly developed medicine, the Centre’s primary goal.
Following these workshops Emily, along with her key collaborator emeritus professor Alan Fairlamb, continued exploring how these workshops could be shared in a more public way, and how best to use the resource of LifeSpace Science Art Research Gallery. Together, the realised that the only way to truly know the space was to move in, and become not just artists in residents, but parasites. Emily and Alan spent a week in November living in LifeSpace and the Wellcome Trust Building. Engaging with the building as body, the pair underwent a unique process of manipulating the environment to suit their needs. Not unlike parasites, they wished no harm, but desired to come to an accommodation with their host.
