In between sessions together, we’ve worked individually.
Mathilde has researched further scientific data and created thin sections in the lab at theUniversity of Bristol from rock samples from Doniford beach, as well as undertaking her own creative explorations with the paints and the data.

Sara has been testing the potential of the earth pigment paints, using a variety of surfaces, binders and processing techniques. She has been stretching her explorations of the materials into combinations with other media, including oil-based glaze medium and figuring out the aesthetic and conceptual needs and potential of these works through a range of improvisations.

Convergence | Creative Lab | update 01 (v4)

We document our joint and personal explorations through a shared sketchbook and an online diary. These records have proved invaluable to track our evolving thoughts about the methods, themes, and purpose of the collaboration. Much of the learning is experiential and in the moment, whether walking the terrain, working with the paints or cutting rocks in the lab, so it has been essential to capture it as it emerges and keep each other up-to-date.

Convergence | Creative Lab | update 01 (v4)

We took a decision to remain located in a single rural, coastal environment, rather than traversing across and through the landscape. This has enabled a settling of collected experiences and materials, and offered the potential for a deepened immersion into a geologically-rich location.

Starting with an inhalation of the experience of being on Doniford Beach, we absorbed visual, tactile, geological, multi-sensory, embodied understandings and insights of this complex and dynamic coastal terrain. Back in our studio and laboratory environments, a wealth of questions and avenues for exploration have emerged from handling, processing and interrogating earths, rocks, videos and other visual data gathered from the beach.

Universal and global themes around the value of art and science coming together, rather than a place-specific narrative are emerging. Our choice to focus on one rich place is becoming a locus for expanding into broader, more universal themes.

Some of the strands we are actively working with are:

●  Empathy vs disconnection
Comparing our approaches to data collection and observing the detachment from the natural environment felt in the science lab, in contrast to processing the earths in a mindful and connected way in the studio. Industrial cutting, grinding and polishing in the lab feels disturbing and violent, and emphasises the detachment. How do scientific methods contribute to the detachment we feel from our environment? And in contrast, how does an artistic approach to manipulating pigments and source material help retain connection? This emergent collaboration explores how this connected artistic approach can infuse into scientific practice.

●  Parallels between scientific and artistic processes and analysis Both Sara’s artistic approach in the studio (layering earth paints on 2D surfaces) and Mathilde’s process of making thin sections from rock (grinding them down until they are only 30 micrometres thick) are ways of making flat rocks. What is revealed in these flattening processes, discretely and together?

●  Aesthetics
Beauty (however defined) and its role and value in facilitating emotional connections recurs as a question, in particular when fostering a sense of relationship with a place. We explore both its function in art and its arguable absence in science.

●  Soft; hard; organic; geometric
Considering physical changes to rocks and earth through lab and studio processes, and natural and manmade alterations to the coast through erosion. We are questioning how these changes alter our relationship with the materiality of the natural environment.

●  Other themes arise from the process of making such as the concept of migratory stones, as parallels with other forms of migration, and our ‘becoming one’ with, rather than observing the landscape. These are emergent themes which we want to delve into and further.

Where we’re headed next

We are fascinated by the ways in which the micro and macro forms and dimensions of the environment echo one another and how, along with the strands of inquiry above, they give rise to meta-questioning. The act of working together directly is eliciting new questions and the materials and matter of the place are contributing an additional participant to our work – becoming a third-party in our collaboration. The strands identified above all contribute to refining our collaborative purpose, methods, concepts, activities and outcomes.

We aim to share our works-in-process at an exhibition in September. We anticipate that we will present works which combine raw scientific data and visual storytelling with a strong sense of the materiality of our coastal encounters.

This presentation will be a snapshot. We will continue to develop the works into the autumn, in greater depth. As the artworks near completion, we also envisage a phase of sharing, dialogue, reflection and evaluation of the whole process to refine our collaborative methodology. We would like to document the learnings from our research and share them with others. We anticipate also having a film which documents our evolving process and interprets our emerging collaboration.

We hope ultimately to create a model of deep and purposeful art-science collaboration to share with artistic and scientific research communities.