The ARTlab Nottingham recently funded artists-in-residence to work towards the exhibition Cosmic Titans at Lakeside Arts, Nottingham January – April 2025.
Residents include artists Conrad Shawcross, Alistair McClymont, Monica LoCascio, Daniela Brill Estrada and Matthew Woodham. They each joined the research group led by Prof Silke Weinfurtner for at least 10 days for reciprocal exchange.
The purpose of this ARTlab residency programme is to enable a creative two-way exchange between artists and scientists resulting in creative responses to research being undertaken in fundamental physics on the one hand, as well as fostering artists-in-residency at the University.
The residency facilitates cross-cultural exchange and fosters collaborative approaches for creative practice and fundamental science research.
The ARTlab’s first artist-in-residence Conrad Shawcross joined University of Nottingham’s Gravity Laboratory (School of Mathematical Sciences) during a 10-day residency in May and June 2023.
20 Nottingham researchers joined in curiosity-driven explorations and experimentations around the research topics of black holes and the very early phase of the Universe.
The ARTlab’s second resident, Alistair McClymont joined the research group in January 2024. The residency was in collaboration with Dr Lina Jansson, Dr Marco Hernandez and Dr Ulrike Kuchner as part of a new experiment that includes research into philosophy of science around topics of experiments, observations and analog simulations, quantum technology and quantum physics.
Alistair has also produced original work that is part of the Cosmic Titans exhibition.
Although the formal residencies are now complete, some of the artists continue to collaborate with the scientists that they met through ARTlab. Mathew and Alistair both continue to contribute to the projects that they visited in 2024, with Alistair, for instance, now a part of the Gravity Laboratory team.