Ideas Bazaar with Sheffield University

I had a really interesting day earlier this week...

A little while ago, I discovered an event at Sheffield University that could have been devised just for me, it was so perfect. Ideas Bazaar was a kind of match-making day, helping Sheffield's scientists to find artists to work with. It turns out that the university have a pot of money to fund collaborations between art and science: they advertised for artists who wanted to get involved. Naturally, I bit their arm off! 

On Tuesday afternoon, John and I set up a little exhibition in the university's rather grand Firth Hall, showcasing the 'best of' my Morgan Centre project sketchbooks. As you can see, we were the first to get set up. We needed the time though: it proved very tricky indeed to get all 8 concertinas pinned up completely straight and parallel right along their length. Bit of a nightmare, but we got there. 

Regular readers will know, I've had work with both Manchester and York universities, but it does seem daft to have a major university on my doorstep, but have no contacts there. And it was SO interesting, talking to all the various scientists who came round. I had conversations with a neurologist studying the brains of fruit flies, a sociologist researching mass shootings in America, a geneticist studying brittle bone disorder in children, a keeper of the National Circus Archive, a professor of Health Informatics, interested in how people with terminal diseases get support from social media... and more besides.

I don't know if any of the contacts I made will translate into actual work or not, but quite a few people did seem genuinely interested and chatted to me for a fair while, so we'll see. It was certainly well worth putting on a nice frock and getting my best smile into gear.

I'll let you know what happens. Wish me luck!