ASCUS Art & Science
Tuesday 4 June 2013
ASCUS leads on public engagement through art science collaboration
At team from ASCUS attended this years ‘Research Futures 2013: Public Engagement and the Impact Agenda’ conference in St Andrews as experts in public engagement with science through art science collaboration and interaction. We took along an exciting exhibition and a led a workshop which included our [E]laborate poetry activity.
In June 2013 ASCUS volunteers attended the 2013 Research Futures Conference hosted by St. Andrews University. The theme of this years conference was ‘Public Engagement and the Impact Agenda’ and ASCUS’s unique brand of art-science collaboration brought a new angle to the debate on how researchers can introduce their work to a wider audience and encourage engagement with a diverse range of people, from members of parliament to school children.
ASCUS displayed a number of art-science exhibits, including Madeleine Shepherd and Julia Collin’s ‘Mathematician’s Shirts’, Hamer Dodd’s evolution inspired illustrations and Henry Segerman’s 3D printed mathematical models. The exhibit drew a great amount of interest from researchers looking for ways to increase the impact of their work and engage new audiences. Other key topics discussed at the conference included making science policy more accessible to researchers and universities, organising festivals for the arts and sciences, plus strategies for effective science communication.
The ASCUS team also held a workshop in which groups randomly sampled a scientific paper to create poetry. The resulting limericks, haikus and concrete poetry demonstrated how scientists can use creative techniques to engage with their work in new ways and the activity fueled discussion on the use of poetry as a tool to introduce non-scientists to technical, scientific papers.
Here’s more information about the conference, which can also be found on the conference website: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/capod/researchfutures2013/
The purpose of the 2013 Research Futures conference was to promote, discuss and disseminate policy, experience, good practice, innovation and development around the themes of Public Engagement and Impact in research. The emphasis was on examining current themes in research and it was more about the future of research in higher eduction than on future of the individual researcher.
