New arts awards mark a decade of public engagement

7 November 2006

To celebrate ten years of funding of arts-related projects inspired by the sciences, the UK's largest biomedical charity, the Wellcome Trust has just announced its most recent round of awards made through Sciart and Pulse, two of its funding schemes.

An intelligent room that can converse with its occupants, the story of a jazz guitarist virtuoso who was musically silenced by memory stripping brain surgery, a puppetry performance exploring the ethics of anti-ageing products, and a musical representation of medical conditions inspired by a Honda advert are just some examples of the innovative projects that have been awarded.

Clare Matterson, Director of Medicine, Society and History at the Wellcome Trust explains:

"Over the last decade, the Wellcome Trust has been a strong supporter of arts projects that investigate biomedical science. These projects are an excellent way of raising interest and stimulating debate, often reaching audiences that may not traditionally be interested in such topics. Whether it's through the visual arts, film-making, writing or performance, these awards have altered the way we think about art and science."

The first round of Sciart awards was launched in 1996 supporting innovative and experimental arts and science collaborative projects. In 2001, the Wellcome Trust ran a Science on Stage and Screen programme, and two years later the Pulse awards were launched to support young people's arts activity. Since then, the Wellcome Trust has committed over £1 million a year on arts-related activity.

Previous projects have included the critically acclaimed Bobby Baker show, 'How to Live', a commentary on cognitive therapy recently performed at the Barbican; 'Colour Coded', a young, black filmmakers' project examining skin colour and pigmentation; and 'Ex Memoria', a short film exploring the experience of Alzheimer's disease that has recently been shortlisted for the British Independent Film Awards alongside films such as 'The Queen' and 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley'.

Mia Bays, producer of 'Ex Memoria' said:

"Funding from the Sciart programme gave us an excellent opportunity to make a film that worked on both an artistic level and a social and educational level, by enabling us to involve a group of experts in dementia to help create an honest and accurate portrayal of someone experiencing Alzheimer's. It also allowed us to develop an educational programme around the film so that it can be used to support the training of care workers in future. The Wellcome Trust provides the opportunity to explore new ways of working across artistic and scientific disciplines and seek out innovative ways of engaging audiences, and it is a hugely valuable and unique scheme."

'Ex Memoria' has played at prestigious film festivals worldwide, including Edinburgh, Melbourne, LA Shorts Fest, Palm Springs and Brief Encounters Bristol, and has been nominated as Best Short Film 2006 in the British Independent Film Awards.

The Wellcome Trust will be announcing future plans for funding arts inspired by biomedical science in 2007.

Media enquiries

Mike Findlay, Wellcome Trust Media Office
T +44 (0)20 7611 8612
E m.findlay@wellcome.ac.uk

The Wellcome Trust is the most diverse biomedical research charity in the world, spending about £450 million every year both in the UK and internationally to support and promote research that will improve the health of humans and animals. The Trust was established under the will of Sir Henry Wellcome, and is funded from a private endowment, which is managed with long-term stability and growth in mind.

Sciart awards, 2006

Alexa Wright, University College London: The Listening Room
'The Listening Room' is a collaboration between artist Alexa Wright and Alf Linney, Professor of Medical Physics at UCL. Within the Centre for Auditory Research, they are researching an effective means of modelling human communication. This project will create an interactive audio installation – an intelligent room that can converse with its occupants – bringing the latest sound placement and speech recognition and synthesis technologies into a clinical environment, and working with scientists researching the physical and neurological aspects of binaural hearing.

Fiona Boundy, A Foundation: Silent Sound
Artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard are collaborating with psychologist Ciaran O'Keeffe at Liverpool Hope University and musician Jason Pierce on a performance piece and accompanying installation as part of the Liverpool Biennial 2006. The work explores the psychology of performance and engages the public in questioning the potential of the human mind, culminating in a performance 'experiment' drawing on stylistics, languages and techniques from Victorian séance, spiritualist performance and early 1970s performance art.

Ian Knox: In the Moment
Filmmaker Ian Knox and neuropsychologist Paul Broks are making a documentary feature film about legendary jazz guitar virtuoso Pat Martino, who was musically silenced by life-saving but memory-stripping brain surgery for an aneurysm. Through the remarkable story of his ascent from the depths of amnesia to the peak of artistry once more, the film will explore the nature of self, creativity and the brain systems underlying personal identity.

Professor Mark S P Sansom, University of Oxford: Lighting up Computational Biochemistry
Artist Tim Head is undertaking a year's research residency at the Structural Bioinformatics and Computational Biochemistry Unit, with the aim of facilitating discourse between artists and scientists, providing new approaches to public engagement and creating a new contemporary art collection. A particular focus of this residency will be to generate a dialogue between artistic and biomedical disciplines that have a common interest in computing and graphics as their core activities.

Simon Pummel: Fleeting Improvised Men
Media artist Simon Pummell is working with psychoanalyst Helen Taylor Robinson to develop a script and prototype interactive DVD to portray and explore the contemporary implications of the labyrinthine inner world of Daniel Paul Schreber, who wrote 'Memoirs of My Nervous Illness' in 1903. Schreber, the son of child educator Daniel Gottlieb Moritz Schreber, was raised within punitive systems of training and discipline, and suffered from severe psychosis later in life.

Dr Simon F Park, University of Surrey: Sixty Days of Goodbye Poems of Ophelia
Artist Joanna Woodward, composer Stephen Goss and sound designer Milton Mermikides are collaborating with microbiologist Simon Park to create an animated painting out of bacteria based on Millais's pre-Raphaelite painting of Ophelia. The growth and interaction of bacteria will generate the image and also reflect the body's decomposition following death.

Simon Gould, National Institute for Medical Research: Exploring Normality – Developing a Scientific Model of Disability

As part of the National Institute for Medical Research artist in residence programme, artist Ju Gosling is collaborating with molecular neuroendocrinologist Dr Evelien Gevers and limb development researcher Dr Malcolm Logan, with the aim of developing a scientific model of disability.

Dr Hugo J Spiers, University College London: Neurotopographics
Neuroscientist Dr Hugo Spiers, architect Bettina Vismann and artist Antoni Malinowski are collaboratively making a film exploring how dynamic patterns of brain activity provide a code for the structure of space.

Dave Lewis: Testimony - Afro-Carribeans and Mental Health
Photographer Dave Lewis and biopsychosocial psychiatrist Dr Dele Olajide will work together to produce a series of images informed by contemporary arts practice and a new approach to mental health service provision in the community.

Christian Nold: Bio Mapping
'Bio Mapping' explores new ways that individuals make use of the information they can gather about their bodies. Artist Christian Nold has designed a device that records emotional responses to an individual's environment to create an 'emotion map'. He is now working with neuroscientists to analyse the patterns in people's emotion maps to develop new tools for the future.

Jordan Baseman, Wimbledon School of Art: Nature's Great Experiment
Artist Jordan Baseman is collaborating with behavioural geneticist Terrie Moffitt and her Twin Research team at the Institute of Psychiatry. The project will involve the development of a series of short films and a website that incorporate twin case studies, drawings, audio files and recorded interviews with the scientists.

Sue Parrish, Sphinx Theatre Company: Yellow
Visual artist and designer Geraldine Pilgrim and writer Rachel Barnett collaborate with Sphinx Theatre Company on an installation that will explore the most severe form of postnatal depression, puerperal psychosis. 'Yellow' takes as its starting point the 1899 story 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and the project aims to give an insight into this public health issue using film, photography and text. The consultant on the production is Dr Liz McDonald of Homerton Hospital.

Pulse awards, June 2006

Jackie Eley, Half Moon Theatre: Touching Science
'Touching Science' is a multi-sensory drama project exploring biomedical science with children aged three to seven of all abilities. By building on the 'eureka moments' experienced by children as they develop a knowledge and understanding of the world, this project helps them make a creative connection with science and to develop a curiosity for the social and ethical issues relating to advances in biomedical science. The project comprises experimental cross-arts drama workshops in the children's own settings, as well as at the Half Moon's theatre space, using the technical resources including lighting, sound and special effects to create an installation.

Deborah Dalton, Toynbee School: Who Wants to Live Forever?
From the ancient Greek myth of Eos Tithonus (who ended up as a grasshopper by mistake), through Juan Ponce de Leon and his failed quest in 1513 for the fountain in modern-day Florida, to today's anti-ageing creams and treatments; people have dreamed of finding something that would keep them young forever. In 'Who Wants to Live Forever?', pupils from Toynbee School - working in partnership Little Angel Theatre - will blend puppetry with their drama to present the search for eternal youth and question the benefits and drawbacks that this would cause society.

Laura Sillars, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT): Sonic Streams
A creative exploration of how sound can affect the human body. FACT and Alder Hey Children's Hospital bring together young people, established new media artists and a science team led by a paediatric neurologist. Drawing together creative and scientific work, the project will research how sound might be used educationally in aiding recovery and promoting wellbeing. Children and young people will be involved throughout the process, from scientific research to production of artwork. Content developed will form education resources delivered to schools at FACT, Alder Hey and online. The programme adds a new dimension to the hospital's neurological research and evaluation will be disseminated nationally.

Dave Flemming, Arts Action York: Bio-Mation
A team of artists and clinicians will engage young people from the children's ward at York Hospital in creating their own animation films exploring social, emotional and scientific aspects of their medical conditions. The films will be projected onto a large blank exterior wall (overlooked by the children's ward) at the south entrance of the hospital, as well as in other public venues. School groups will research and develop information packs to accompany the animations and produce an educational resource for use by medical staff, students and patients.

Joel Churcher, Actiondog Productions: Corporeal Cacophony (Body Babble)
Actiondog's team of musicians, composers and artists and a small team of science professionals will work with the Jack Petchey Academy on a music project inspired by Honda's 'Power of Screams' TV commercial, where a choir replicates the various sounds of the Honda Civic. The children will select a medical condition and visually and audibly recreate what is happening as the condition develops. Groups will work with voice, digital media and physical theatre, and the project will culminate in a final live show with the choir performing their soundscapes accompanied by a backdrop of digital images. The event will be filmed and distributed on DVD.