ASCUS Art & Science
About the Project
‘Atopic Art: Expressions of Eczema’ is a partnership project between ASCUS Art & Science and Prof Sarah Brown.
Participatory Artwork
The project first began in early 2015 with ASCUS commissioning artists Trevor Gordon and Josie Valley, in partnership with Eczema Outreach Scotland to deliver participatory workshops to families affected by eczema at venues across Scotland at Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness.
From these workshops, and through collaboration with Eczema Outreach Scotland and their members, the artists developed new artwork inspired by the creations of individual workshop participants, and based around the theme of ‘living with eczema’. Trevor and Josie creatively incorporated the participants artwork into the final pieces, and worked beyond this to develop new ideas that reflected both the ideas that emerged from this process, along with works inspired by personal expressions of their own experiences of living with eczema. Together the works created by Trevor and Josie reflect the emotional impact of the condition on sufferers.
The resulting artworks were showcased at the Dundee Science Festival in Nov 2015 and went on show to Edinburgh audiences for the first time at the Edinburgh International Science Festival 2016 – 25th March – 10th April. These artworks have also been the inspiration for a schools exhibition pack developed in collaboration with Eczema Outreach Scotland (EOS), their designer, ASCUS and the artists.
Atopic Art Micro-Residencies
Continuing on from this ASCUS launched the next stage of this project which saw us continue to work closely with Prof Sara Brown to invite two new artists to take part in our Atopic Micro-Residency at Brown skin genetic laboratory at the University of Dundee. Based here the artists got to see first hand the labs cutting edge genetic research along with the opportunity to observe Prof Brown’s clinical work.
The resulting artworks were showcased at the LifeSpace Science Art Gallery in June 2017 joining Trevor Gordon and Josie Vallely’s participatory artworks, as part of Beyond Skin exhibition. Photographic representations of the project and the resulting artworks were later exhibited at Slessor Gardens in the City of Dundee.
We Began as Part of the Body, by Beverley Hood, a multi-component digital artwork, inspired by the creative research gathered during her time as artists in residence in Professor Sara Brown’s eczema genetic research laboratory of Professor Sara Brown, will be on show as part of Being Human with the Centre for Biomedicine Self & Society and Inspace in November 2020.
Read more about Professor Sara Brown and her research
Read more about Atopic Art Micro-Residency project
Read more about Participating Artists – Atopic Art Micro-Residency project
