Opening Space: Art, Design and Science in Exchange

What happens when artists and designers step into some of the UK’s most advanced scientific facilities?

Join Central Saint Martins and The Francis Crick Institute for a conversation exploring a unique collaboration that has invited students from CSM’s MA Biodesign and MA Art and Science into laboratories, imaging suites and technical platforms to develop new work.

Drawing on access to the Crick’s Cell Science, Electron Microscopy and Making Lab facilities, the discussion will examine how creative and scientific practices challenge, enrich and transform one another. From revealing the unexpected beauty of cells and microscopic structures to questioning how knowledge is produced, artists and scientists bring different methods, motivations and ways of seeing to shared problems.

Through examples from the collaboration, speakers will discuss curiosity, creativity, and communication and share the often immeasurable outcomes of cross-disciplinary work. Together, they will consider how reciprocal exchange between art, design and science can expand understanding, foster innovation and reveal the human stories behind scientific research, creating new possibilities for both fields and for the wider public.

Being Human Festival

This event is part of Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 5-14 November 2026. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org