Creative Labs work in progress artefacts

One of four successful applicants selected for the Leeds Creative Labs: Biological Sciences 2nd Edition, an initiative developed by the Cultural Institute at the University of Leeds. The programme matches artists with academics from the Faculty of Biological Sciences. The Creative Labs process is designed to enable artist and scientist to explore and create ideas together without an agenda, gradually establishing the focus of their engagement with each other, and how their research backgrounds might lead to new collaborations. It aims to inspire and challenge arts & creative professionals and science academics to explore their creative processes, innovate, and take risks to find new ways of working together. Paired with biophysicists, the collaboration led to a range of ideas around science communication. In the later stages of the collaboration this focused on an exploration of the x-ray diffraction experiments of textile physicist William Astbury. Over three months, the process involved an introduction launch event, a minimum of three lab days on site discussing methods and ideas, and a concluding sharing event presentation with exhibition of works in progress at The Print Works, Leeds. This final event explored the thinking, observations and learning from each collaboration, providing an opportunity to reflect on the Creative Labs experience and share ideas for future work. The images within the suggested textile lengths shown are developed from William Astbury’s x-ray diffraction research published in the 1930's, which includes stretching fibres such as silk and wool to begin to understand the behaviour of proteins at a molecular level. This output forms part of a larger research portfolio (see the 'Decoded Lab'  contextual information file attached to this output).