Drawing on Life: Scientists and artists join forces to launch the Big Draw 2008
25 September 2008
The combined creativity of Richard Wilson, one of Britain's foremost contemporary artists, and Dr Armand Leroi, evolutionary biologist at Imperial College London and author of 'Mutants', will open 'Drawing on Life' - the launch festival for The Big Draw 2008 - at Wellcome Collection on Friday 26 September.
'Drawing on Life' is a free three-day festival organised by the Campaign for Drawing, Bow Arts Trust and University College London (UCL). Sculptors and illustrators are joining forces with neurologists and geneticists, combining their expertise and drawing on science, medicine and art to inspire people of all ages and abilities to draw in celebration of life and what it means to be human.
Armand Leroi said: “Drawing is fundamental to so much of science, particularly biology. Scientists have always used drawing as a way of seeing the natural world, explaining it, understanding it. Sketching out an idea on paper is an instinctive way to test your idea, identify its flaws or discover new possibilities that your imagination alone cannot see.”
Richard Wilson, whose work ‘Turning the Place Over’ is a centrepiece of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture year, said: “Artists draw for many reasons - to generate ideas, to observe and test those ideas, but also for pleasure. And everyone can draw for pleasure - I think lots of people say they can’t draw because they think there’s a right way, and therefore a wrong way, to draw. But even drawing a rough map to give someone directions works without having to portray every kink in the road. There are a million ways to be right when you’re drawing and there’s nowhere better to try it than at an inspirational festival like ‘Drawing on Life’.”
Dates and times:
Friday 26 September (opening): Wellcome Collection, 19.00-22.00.
Saturday 27 September: UCL and Wellcome Collection, 11.00-17.00.
Sunday 28 September: Wellcome Collection, 11.00-17.00.
For more details, visit
the ‘Drawing on Life’ website.
On the opening night, visitors can watch Steven Appleby drawing live in response to the music of Nathan "Flutebox" Lee, or they can create their own sets and characters for the Little Theatre of Disease and Desire. Eminent scientists will give talks on subjects such as ‘Drawing and the Scientific Imagination’, and ‘Ambiguities in Art and the Brain’.
A number of interactive and creative workshops partner leading artists with scientists from UCL and Queen Mary, University of London, to offer visitors the chance to learn the secrets of animation, “draw while talking,” create ultraviolet mobiles, and draw the seat of their soul.
A series of contemporary animated films will be shown throughout the festival, including work by renowned South African artist William Kentridge.
‘Drawing on Life’ continues over the whole weekend, with a jam-packed programme of workshops, masterclasses and talks throughout Wellcome Collection, and on Saturday 27 September the festival takes over Bloomsbury as the Wellcome Trust building and the neighbouring UCL campus play host to exciting events.
Highlights of Saturday’s line-up include a workshop where participants can draw graphic scores for the premiere of a new choral work to be performed by members of the public together with Exaudi, one of Britain’s most exciting young new music groups. There are unique opportunities to create body maps, modern-day votives, and slogans on body issues; make experimental music with the Drawing Machine, take a cartooning masterclass with Patrick Blower, or join artist Richard Wentworth and scientist Mark Lythgoe as they walk, map and re-draw their environment. And Professor Steve Jones will entertain with a talk about snails in art and the art of snails.
The weekend is also the last chance to see the exhibition ‘Skeletons: London’s buried bones’, at Wellcome Collection.
Visit the ‘Drawing on Life’ website for more information about the weekend, and go to the Campaign for Drawing site for a listing of 1000 Big Draw events taking place across the UK from 1 to 31 October.
All art materials are provided free thanks to Derwent, Britain’s only pencil manufacturer.
Contact
Michael Regnier
Media Officer
Wellcome Trust
T +44 (0)20 7611 7262
E
m.regnier@wellcome.ac.uk
Notes for editors
Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Road
London
NW1 2BE
Fri. 26 Sep: 19.00-22.00.
Sat. 27 Sep: 11.00-17.00.
Sun. 28 Sep: 11.00-17.00.
All events are free.
University College London
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT
Sat. 27 Sep: 11.00-17.00.
All events are free.
The Campaign for Drawing
The Campaign for Drawing raises the profile of drawing and promotes its value as an effective tool for creativity, cultural engagement and learning. Its long-term ambition is to change the way drawing is perceived and used by professionals and the public.
The Big Draw is an annual celebration of drawing, involving hundreds of participatory and inclusive events. These are held each October in a vast range of venues from scout huts and nursery schools to palaces and national museums.
The Power Drawing professional development programme underpins the Campaign. It supports the work of teachers, cultural educators and others who use drawing as a medium for learning. Power Drawing provides proof that drawing develops skills of perception, thought, invention and action.
The Campaign for Drawing is supported by Arts Council England, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Foster+Partners.
Bow Arts Trust, in Tower Hamlets, was established by Marcel Baettig in 1995 as a cultural facility for the education and enjoyment of the artists and residents of Tower Hamlets and its adjoining boroughs, and to national and international audiences.
The Bow Arts Trust has developed as an international centre for educational creativity and the contemporary visual arts in the heart of the East End of London. Annie Bicknell heads a dynamic education team nationally reputed for its innovative and cutting-edge programme.
The Trust occupies two buildings opposite the historic St Mary Atta le Bow Church. One the site of an old factory built in 1818 the other a disused Carmelite nunnery built around 1850.
The Trust has established and manages: The Nunnery, a widely accessible contemporary art gallery; over 100 affordable artists' studios; and a London-wide educational programme helping over 20 000 young people and adults each year.
University College London
Founded in 1826,
UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government’s most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence.
UCL is in the top ten world universities in the 2007 THES-QS World University Rankings, and the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2007 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Marie Stopes, Jonathan Dimbleby, Lord Woolf, Alexander Graham Bell, and members of the band Coldplay.
Queen Mary, University of London
Queen Mary, University of London is one of the UK's leading research-focused higher education institutions with some 13 000 undergraduate and postgraduate students. Amongst the largest of the colleges of the University of London, Queen Mary’s 2800 staff deliver world class degree programmes and research across 21 academic departments and institutes, within three sectors: Science and Engineering; Humanities, Social Sciences and Laws; and the School of Medicine and Dentistry. Over 80 per cent of Queen Mary’s research staff work in departments where research is of international or national excellence (RAE 2001). The College has a strong international reputation, with around 20 per cent of students coming from over 100 countries and 2000 students on a unique collaborative degree programme in Beijing. Queen Mary has an annual turnover of £200 million, research income worth £43m, and generates employment and output worth £500m to the UK economy each year. Queen Mary, as a member of the 1994 Group of research-focused universities, has made a strategic commitment to the highest quality of research, but also to the best possible educational, cultural and social experience for its students. The College is unique amont London's universities in being able to offer a completely integrated residential campus, with a 2000-bed award-winning Student Village on its Mile End campus.
Wellcome Collection
The Wellcome Trust's former headquarters, the Wellcome Building on London's Euston Road, has been redesigned by Hopkins Architects to become a new £30 million public venue. Free to all,
Wellcome Collection explores the connections between medicine, life and art in the past, present and future. The building comprises three galleries, a public events space, the Wellcome Library, a café, a bookshop, conference facilities and a members' club.
The Wellcome Trust
The
Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK. It funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending over £600 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas. The Wellcome Trust supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact on health and wellbeing.