Sneak preview: Arty events at the Science Festival 2014

Source:  Cambridge Science Festival.

University of Cambridge Science Festival, 10 - 23 March 2014

Plan ahead for arty events at this year's Science extravaganza.  Lots of interesting non-art stuff as well.  Visit the Festival website to pre-book.  Most events are FREE!

Visual art

Fiji exhibition.  Source:  MAA.

Art and Power in Fiji

Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Downing Street. 

Exhibition open Tues-Sun.  Guided tours on Fridays 14 and 21 March, 3 pm (pre-book).  Talk on how decorative patterns make the objects powerful, Thurs 20 March 5.30 pm (pre-book)

The first exhibition on Fijian art outside of Fiji.

Fijian Barkcloth

Small Exams Hall, Arts School, Bene't Street.  Sat 15 March, 11-4 pm.

For the first time in a generation, a large pice of barkcloth from the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology will be on display.

Abraham Ortelius' map of Iceland published ca. 1595.  Source:  UL Cambridge.

Pictures, Perspectives and Plans

Cambridge University Library, West Road.  Tues 11 March, 5.30 pm.  Pre-book (free).

Learn about changing styles in cartography and view examples of maps from the 15th century to now.

Painting with the Earth

Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Downing Street.  Wed 19 March, 7 pm.  Pre-book

Spike Bucklow of the Hamilton Kerr Institute (one of the world's leading institutes in the conservation of paintings) talks about natural mineral painting pigments over the millennia.

Exhibit at the Wellcome exhibition.  Source: CB University

Wellcome Image Awards

Ruskin Gallery, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road (entry also via corner Collier Rd / Mackenzie Rd). 

Exhibition Mon-Sat.  Private View Thurs 20 March, 5 pm, with a talk by the Wellcome Trust at 7 pm.

See images that bring to life medical discovery, from microscopy to illustration. 

ABOUTNESS

Live art performances in response to neuroscientific research, incl. painting, drawing, video installation, in situ drawing and live art performance.  Pre-book.  £3.

Venue to be announced: check the booking page.

Display at the Sedgwick Museum.  Source:  University of CB, Museums and Collections

The Art and Science of Curation

Polar Museum, Lensfield Road.  Thurs 20 March, 6 pm.  Pre-book.

Join a panel of curators as they explore the definition and role of curation across arts and sciences.  Presented by University of Cambridge Museums.

Egyptian Blue: The First Synthetic Pigment

Fitzwilliam Museum, Trumpington Street.  Wed 12 March, 1.15 pm.

Find out about making and investigating this pigment; run by two conservators (Antiquities).

Conservation Conversations

Fitzwilliam Museum, Trumpington Street.  Fri 14 March, 5-7 pm; Sat 15 March, 2-4 pm.

Listen to talks on how objects are conserved and preserved.

Infrared technology at the Fitz.  Source:  labbulletin.

Infrared Light on Manuscript Illuminations

Fitzwilliam Museum, Trumpington Street.  Wed 19 March 1.15 pm.

A presentation by the research associate (Manuscripts and Printed Books).

Photography

Human Lymphocyte by David Scharf. Source: Royal Photographic Society.

International Images for Science Exhibition 

ArtCell Gallery, Cancer Research UK, Li Ka Shing Centre, Robinson Way. 

Exhibition open Mon-Fri.

See scientific photographs showing images from distant galaxies to subatomic particles.  Also an opportunity to discover this little-known venue (I hadn't heard of it).

Engineering Captured on Camera

Michaelhouse Café, Trinity Street.

Exhibition open Mon-Sat.

See entries from the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering photography competition.

Source:  Cambridge Science Festival.

 

Does any of this tickle your fancy??  Please comment below!

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Behind-the-Scenes at a Science Museum: Behind every great dinosaur, there's a great artist

On Saturday, I went to the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, as part of an outing to the annual Cambridge Science Festival.

But (pssst) I was not interested in the science.  I was on the hunt for art.

Because here's what I discovered:

Nobody's imagination is fired by bones neatly arranged by palaeontologists.

Nobody's imagination but the palaeontologists' themselves, of course!

Dr Sattler and Dr Grant (Jurassic Park)

 Dr Ross Geller (Friends)

The rest of us, it seems, need blood and guts, T-rexes tearing herbivores limb from limb, Jurassic reptiles anachronistically attacking humans, and general monster mayhem.

We want our fossil digs to be transformed into exciting figurative stories.

© Errol Swanepoel, photo of West Coast Fossil Park dig

Enter Bob Nicholls.  

Bob Nicholls is a "palaeoartist" who paints pictures and murals, makes 3-D models and works with multi-media.  You can hear him talk about his life as a dinosaur fanatic at the Sedgwick Museum on Thursday, 21 March!  I have a ticket and look forward to an evening of tooth, tusk and claw.

And enter Richard Hammond.

This model of a Compsognathus longipes was made by Richard Hammond.  Richard Hammond is now a 'senior character artist' for computer games at Lionhead Studios in Guildford.  But in the 1990s, he was a natural history model maker.  (I had not even realised that either of these artistic careers existed...!)

The museum label explains:

"We do not know if Compsognathus had down, bristles or feathers, but the patch of elongate scales over the shoulders (greenish in the model) have been placed there to highlight this possibility."

The grammar is ambiguous but I'm assuming the 'possibility' refers to feathers.  Hello, raptor bird.

An 1820s vision of 'Ancient Dorsetshire'

Then there is the fantastical painting by local artist Robert B. Farren, based on the even more fantastical sketch by the geologist Henry De la Beche.  I have loved this painting for years.

Portrait of the geologist as an elderly man

The same painter, Robert B. Farren, also produced this portrait of Adam Sedgwick, pioneer geologist, for whom the museum is named.   It hangs above cabinets full of little stones and shells.  Sedgwick wears the robe of a scholar of Trinity College.  I like the way his hand spans the entire Earth.

3-D Sedgwick

Here is Adam Sedgwick again, as a life-size sculpture, looking benevolently down at us from his niche.  He holds a hammer and a fossil.  I wish I knew who the sculptor was.

And Darwin, too

A bust of Charles Darwin hovers high up on a wall.  The sculptor is Anthony Smith who also made the Darwin sculpture in Christ's College.

Anthony Smith, Bust of Charles Darwin, 2009 (commissioned for the Darwin bicentenary)

Vitrines are beautiful, too

Earlier I said that our imaginations are not fired by bones and stones.  But this is not entirely true.  The old Victorian glass cases with their hand-lettered labels and geometric patterns have their own aesthetic charm.

Jannis Kounellis knows this:

Jannis Kounellis, from his 2002 exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum Ghent

More on Cambridge dinosaurs:  Dinosaurs by the Chapman brothers

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