conference & exhibition
ORGANISERS AND SPEAKERS
Pascale Pollier
Pascale’s work attempts to capture the point where art and science meld. An alchemist at heart, her work begins with observation and experimentation and is steeped in solid scientific research and findings. She studied fine art in Belgium, and subsequently a postgraduate training with the Medical Artists Association in London. She is co-founder and president of BIOMAB, she is curating and organising exhibitions, dissection drawing classes, collaborative art/science projects and conferences. In 2015 she became co-founder and president of ARSIC “Art Researches Science International Collaborations, an international collective where Art and Science become entangled. From 2007-2018 Pascale worked as an artistic assistant for Belgian Artist Jan Fabre, gaining a great deal of material knowledge and experience of exhibiting his work in places such as the Louvre Museum, Paris, and the Venice Biennale, and other major galleries and art festivals.
Pascale was an external examiner for the medical art course at The Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification, University of Dundee, and from 2017-2020 was an external examiner for the MA Art in Science course at John Moores University, Liverpool. Pascale is past President of AEIMS 2014-2020. And is Chairman of the Medical Artists Association of Great Britain. Pascale currently lives and works in Liverpool as a research assistant at the FaceLab and is a self-employed artist./sculptor@artem-medicalis
Sandra De Clerck
is an artist who lives and works in Ghent, Belgium.
Sandra De Clerck's work investigates the narrative and expressive possibilities of glass.
Since 2003 De Clerck has been the department head of IKA glass at the Institute of Arts and Crafts in Mechelen, Belgium (www.ikamechelen.be). De Clerck has been a curator of glass exhibitions in museums in Europe such as "Belgium Glass" in Riihimaki Finland and has been a guest lecturer and teacher in various Universities in Europe and the U.S. including the Estonian Academy of Arts and the University of Helsinki. Her work is represented in private and museum collections around the world.
Andrew Burd
"Andrew Burd is a Scottish medic. He has dedicated his professional life to metamorphosis; taking a delicate young spirit, trapped in a carapace of scar and through art and anatomy, through the medium of surgery, giving children the freedom to fly. As the eyes dim, the insights grow brighter. Years of laboratory research, academic studies, teaching, training and helping so many patients; I am moving on. I am fascinated by the interface between man and machine. Not just the physical but what about other forms of control/interaction? Bluetooth? Wifi? Upper limb amputation, which would you prefer? Transplantation or prosthesis? Not a simple question but there is a simple answer: bionic prosthesis. 100%. No question. Okay, follow up question. Major traumatic damage or loss to all or part of the face; transplant or mask? Mask? What sort of mask? A bionic mask: an intimate union between materials and biology powered and controlled by a bio-sensory interface. Transplantation is working against nature. The revolution which we are proposing is to work with nature, to combine, to integrate. It works well with smartphones! Great with upper limb smart prostheses. What about bionic facial prostheses? Start small, think big, So here i am, facing the future and looking at future faces."
Arthur I. Miller
Arthur I. Miller is Emeritus Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at University College London. His critically acclaimed books include the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty that Causes Havoc; Empire of the Stars: Friendship, Obsession and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes; 137: Jung, Pauli, and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession; Insights of Genius: Imagery and Creativity in Science and Art; and Colliding Worlds: How Cutting-Edge Science is Redefining Contemporary Art. A regular broadcaster and lecturer, he has judged art competitions, curated exhibitions on the interface between art and science and writes for The Guardian, The New York Times, Scientific American, Wired and Nautilus. His most recent book, The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity, explores AI and creativity in art, literature and music. His recent play, Synchronicity, recreates the intriguing relationship between the analyst Carl Jung and the brilliant but troubled young physicist Wolfgang Pauli. It had sell-out readings in NY and will be produced 19 November to 30 November 2024 at the White Bear Theatre, London."
Nina Sellars
Dr Nina Sellars is a visual artist, scholar, and curator. Currently, she is a creative consultant for GIDbio: a regenerative medicine company specialising in adipose-derived technologies. Previously, she was the curator of exhibitions and events at the Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology, University of Melbourne, Australia (2019 – 2022); and a curator for the Australian Network of Art and Technology Triennial, ANAT Spectra 2022: Multiplicity. She was also artist in residence at SymbioticA: The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, The University of Western Australia (2016 – 2018); and research fellow at the Alternate Anatomies Lab (robotics and art research group), Curtin University, W.A. (2014 – 2016).
Recent exhibitions of her work include: Comparative Guts, Kiel University, Germany (2023);
The Brain on Art, The Brain Observatory, San Diego, USA (2022); Anatomy & Beyond, RSU Anatomy Museum, Rīga Stradiņš University, Latvia (2021); and HyperPrometheus: The Legacy of Frankenstein, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Western Australia, (2018). Her recent authored publications include: 'Fat Matters: Fluid Interventions in Anatomy’, in Fluid Matter(s): Flow and Transformation in the History of the Body, ANU Press (2020); and 'Robert Hooke’s Micrographia: a historical guide to navigating contemporary images’, in the Routledge Handbook of Art, Science, and Technology Studies (2021).
Sellars lectures in anatomy for artists; figure and perceptual drawing; new media arts theory; and critical posthumanism.
Andrew Carnie
Andrew Carnie is a studio based artist who teaches at the Winchester School of Art. His artistic practice often involves creative interaction with scientists in different fields, regarding themes and ideas, which are often based around neurology. The work produced from these encounters is often time-based in nature, the works explores how a new sense of self might be constructed through contemporary scientific discovery, imagery, and anatomy.
Andrew tries to find innovative ways to portrait the information he is exposed to and is interested in how scientists are creative and how this might reflect on artistic practice in new ways. The pieces create arenas where these ideas can be experienced;
His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide
website: http://www.andrewcarnie.co.uk
science and art blog: http://scienceandart--andrew-carnie.blogspot.com/
Bryan W. Green
Bryan founded the Moodist Movement in 1976 out of a need to give a name to the various activities that made up his work--activities that fused into a philosophy not happy to be called Art. Moodism is the Playing, To Exhaustion, of No Game In Particular. Moodism is the Art or Science of Escaping from Self-imposed Misery. B.Green Moodist
Bryan is sculptor/poet/performance
artist and co-Founder of ARSIC ( Art Researches Science International Collaborations)
Michael Sappol
is a historian of visual culture and medicine and science, and Visiting Researcher in the History of Science and Ideas at Uppsala University. His latest book is Queer Anatomies: Aesthetics & desire in the anatomical image 1700-1900 (Bloomsbury, 2024). He is also the author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy & embodied social identity in 19th-century America (2002) and Body Modern: Fritz Kahn, scientific illustration & the homuncular subject (2017). Current projects: “Anatomy’s photography: Objectivity, showmanship & the reinvention of the anatomical image”; “Endangered specimens, unaccountable objects: Historical medical collections and competing ethical claims upon them.” For links to selected works, go to
Mara G. Haseltine
Mara G. Haseltine is an international artist, a pioneer in the field of SciArt, and an environmental activist and educator. Haseltine collaborates with scientists and engineers to create work that addresses the link between our cultural and biological evolution. Her work takes place in the studio, lab and field, infusing scientific inquiry with poetry. She was a pioneer in the translation of scientific data and bioinformatics into three-dimensional sculptures and became known for her outsized renditions of microscopic and sub-microscopic life. She created the first solar-powered oyster reef in NYC and has extensively studied sustainable reef restoration methods for the past 15 years, fusing art with sustainable solutions for ‘SIDS,’ Small Island Developing States at the United Nations. Haseltine has been a contributing member of the Explorers Club since 2008. She was awarded Return of the Flag with Honors for her work on the high seas with Tara Expeditions studying atmospheric climate change and its relationship to planktonic ecosystems. Haseltine’s work is refreshing in the world of environmental and biomedical art because of its surreal, often-playful and witty nature, as well as her intense devotion to ascetics and sensuality. For full CV and website :www.calamara.com
Francis Wells
Francis Wells is a Cardiothoracic surgeon based in Papworth Hospital, part of the University of Cambridge group of specialist hospitals. Trained in London, Cambridge and the University of Alabama in Birmingham Alabama where he was senior research fellow to Professor John Kirklin, a founding father of modern cardiac surgical practice. His specialist area of interest has been heart valve reconstruction, cardiopulmonary transplantation and the surgical management of intra-thoracic malignancy.
In parallel with his clinical practice Francis has had a lifelong interest in the arts and a specific interest in the Renaissance, having studied in depth the work of Leonardo da Vinci. This work led recently to the publication of his book The Heart of Leonardo.
He has sponsored several artists in residence within his clinical practice and this has led to several pieces which have appeared in major exhibitions including the Royal Academy summer show. Himself a recipient of the Sir Hugh Casson prize for drawing, Francis enjoys drawing, painting and playing the piano.
Eleanor Crook
Eleanor Crook trained in sculpture at Central St Martins and the Royal Academy and makes figures and effigies in wax, carved wood and lifelike media. She has also made a special study of anatomy and has sculpted anatomical and pathological waxworks for the Gordon Museum of Pathology at Guy's Hospital, London's Science Museum, and the Royal College of Surgeons of England. She exhibits internationally in both fine art and science museum contexts. She learned the technique of forensic facial reconstruction modelling from Richard Neave and has demonstrated and taught this to artists, forensic anthropology students, law enforcement officers and plastic surgeons as well as incorporating this practice in her own sculpted people.
Theo Dirix
Theo Dirix, born mid-20th century, is a professional nomad. After postings in Greece, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Tanzania, he is now living in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Earlier, he was working as a radio host for the classical Flemish radio BRT-3. He has published articles in Flemish and Dutch newspapers and magazines, mainly travel and grave stories. He also authored books commenting on Moroccan literature. During his stay in Greece, he wrote "In Search for Andreas Vesalius: The Quest for the Lost Grave”, in which he takes the reader on a trip to the graves of many Zakynthian poets; the grave of Vesalius is still to be found but the reader will find a bit more of himself.
William Edwards
William Edwards, Curator of the Gordon Museum, Senior Tutor and Deputy course director of the Extended Medical degree Programme (EMPD). Working primarily with undergraduate Medical and Dental education, but also with many Para-medical specialities. Occasionally assists various Police forces in cold case investigations. Represents KCL with issues relating to Medical Museums, the UK Human Tissue Authority, Medical History and Art and Medicine. Works on behalf of Kings College London (KCL) with the Access to Medicine and Widening Participation programmes.
Studied as undergraduate and postgraduate in the University of London in Biology – particular background in Physiology and Developmental Biology.
During the late 1970’s worked as a scientist in industry, moving into Medical and Dental education in the Gordon Museum at the Guy's Hospital Campus in 1980. After five years moved to St. Thomas’ Hospital Campus to take over the then independent Pathology Museum. After seven years and the merger of the pathology museums at Guy's and St. Thomas' returned to Guy’s campus as deputy Curator, Curator now for the last eighteen years.
Ann Van de Velde
Haematologist and Medical Artist
is president of the Association Européenne des Illustrateurs Médicaux et Scientifiques/the European Organization of Medical and Scientific Illustrators. In medical sciences, traditionally illustrations are created to enable communication between scientist and reader, teacher and student and physician and patient. Art and science come together in medical illustration. With BIOMAB - Biological and Medical Art Belgium - she organizes international dissection drawing days for students in Art and Medicine. The dissection process is done and explained by Antwerp based anatomist Francis Van Glabbeek and afterwards the specimens are displayed from different angles to draw from. Like the word sanguine - having the colour of blood, characterized by abundance and active circulation of blood, anticipating the best, confident and full of hope - BIOMAB is a platform for cross-over encounters between people. When we start drawing, painting and photographing, we transform the space into a living lab. Sketches are hung on walls and windows and are placed on tables. With every sketch, there is a certain trepidation that must be overcome. Part of the trepidation falls off because we work directly. We can draw what we see or what we experience and feel. Of course, the interpretative results of the spontaneous sketches may be a long way from anatomical correctness, but these sketches are certainly fascinating scribbles of characters for future artwork. When seeing the drawings and listening at the conversations, it is clear to us that to know we always have to go deeper than our skin and protective layers, deeper than tendons, muscles, blood vessels and nerves, down to the bone. With fragile surgical precision and strong poetry.
Alexander Bieri
Alexander Lukas Bieri has been the curator of The Roche Historical Collection and Archive for twenty years. He is responsible for the in-house museums, collections and archives which include major assets on the history of pharmacy, medicine and art (and an anatomical collection). His publications include works on art and architectural history as well as on the history of science and business. He is currently chairman of the International Council on Archives’ Section on Business Archives and of the German Business Archivists Association’s Section on Archives of the Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industry. Alex is also a member of ICOMOS Switzerland and in this capacity a specialist for 20th century interior design.
Mark Roughley
Mark Roughley is a Lecturer in 3D Digital Art at Liverpool School of Art and Design, and a member of the Face Lab research group that explores faces and art-science applications. Mark trained as a medical artist, gaining his MSc in Medical Art from the University of Dundee, and specializes in visualizing anatomy through 3D data acquisition, modeling, and fabrication. His research focuses on the affordances that 3D digital technologies allow for both digital and haptic interaction with anatomical and cultural artifacts. Mark is also the host of Liverpool LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) Talks that bring artists and scientists together for informal presentations and conversations on art, science, and technology. (University Profile)
Martin Kemp
is a British art historian and exhibition curator who is one of the world's leading authorities on the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci.
The author of many books on Leonardo, Kemp has also written about visualisation in art and science, particularly anatomy, natural sciences and optics.
Instrumental in the controversial authentication of Salvator Mundi to Leonardo, Kemp has been vocal on attributions to Leonardo,
including support of La Bella Principessa and opposition of the Isleworth Mona Lisa.
From 1995 to 2008 he was professor of art history at the University of Oxford and has continued since then as an emeritus professor.
He previously held posts at University of St Andrews (1981–1995) and University of Glasgow (1966–1981).
He holds honorary fellowships of both Trinity College, Oxford and Downing College, Cambridge and is also a fellow of the British Academy.
Professor Kemp's personal website: https://martinjkemp.com/
Dr Ruth Richardson
Dr Ruth Richardson is an interdisciplinary historian, Writer in Residence at the Gordon Museum of Pathology at Guy’s and a Past President of the Dickens Society. For several years, Dr Richardson was Visiting Professor in Humanities & Medicine at Hong Kong University and an Affiliated Scholar in the History & Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, UK. She is the author of Death, Dissection & the Destitute (Chicago University Press, 2000); Vintage Papers from The Lancet (Elsevier 2006); The Making of Mr Gray's Anatomy (Oxford University Press, 2008) and Dickens & the Workhouse (Oxford University Press 2012). She is the co-editor two books on Medical Humanities published by the Royal College of Physicians of London, and has published numerous papers in a wide range of journals, including The Lancet, the British Medical Journal, Dickens Quarterly, and the Notes & Records of the Royal Society.
Brian Hurwitz
Brian Hurwitz trained in medicine and worked in London as a GP for 30 years. In 2002, he became Professor of Medicine and the Arts at King’s College London where he co-directed the Centre for the Humanities and Health, a multidisciplinary research centre offering masters, PhD and postdoctoral education for humanities scholars, bio-scientists and health professionals. He has published in humanities, medical and interdisciplinary journals and has held honorary chairs in the Universities of Sydney, Hong Kong and the Institute of Neurology, UCL. Prior to moving to King’s, he was Professor of Primary Care and General Practice at Imperial College London.