Arts Catalyst launches Centre for Art, Science & Technology
For over 20 years, Arts Catalyst has pioneered art that engages with science and commissioning over 125 ambitious artists’ projects and numerous exhibitions. In January for the first time, Arts Catalyst opens a Centre for Art, Science and Technology in London’s King’s Cross. The centre will provide a space for artists and scientists to experiment and create new projects, and enable vital interactions between artists, experts and audiences. Exhibitions will reflect and extend Arts Catalyst’s national and international projects and the work of partners. Having this base will also allow Arts Catalyst to develop long-term projects with local communities around King’s Cross.
For its opening exhibition at the centre, Arts Catalyst presents Notes from the Field: Commoning Practices in Art and Science. This multi-faceted project investigates the notion of art as a tool or tactic for action with communities, with a focus on projects involving science and technology or driven by ecological concerns. Notes from the Field… presents aspects of Arts Catalyst’s ongoing art and citizen science project Wrecked! on the Intertidal Zone with lead artists YoHa, Critical Art Ensemble, Andy Freeman and Fran Gallardo, who are working with communities on the Thames estuary. Alongside this, it presents the Arte Útil archive, a project initiated by artist Tania Bruguera, which chronicles a history of art projects that create tactics to change how we act in society. In an archive room designed by Collective Works and ConstructLab, housing physical copies of selected Arte Útil case studies, and through exploratory workshops and discussion events, visitors will be able to speak with invited resident guests, undertake their own research, or propose new Arte Útil case studies. Contributing artists, scientists and experts to Notes from the Field… include Alistair Hudson, Dimitri Launder, Sylvia Nagl, Graham Harwood and Veronica Ranner.
