What Happens When Scientists Make Art? A screening of These Relations Are Forever

These Relations Are Forever follows four women researching chemical pollution as they step outside the laboratory to create and perform rituals shaped by their work. 

A water scientist thanks the pond she samples from. A lawyer dances among towering waste infrastructures. A toxicologist cleanses fruit and plastics in her laboratory. An ecologist chants policy text to the soil. Four rituals become one cinematic encounter. Together these performances reveal the questions, emotions and personal experiences of the researchers that are often left outside of scientific practice.

Experience what happens when researchers from diverse disciplines bridge those boundaries and come together through the making of an artwork. 

After the screening, join the artist and participating scientists to hear what happened when they made the work together. How did the experience change their research, their relationships with one another, and the way they think about chemical pollution? 

Artwork created by Caterina Cacciatori (JRC), Sandra Coecke (JRC), Irene Guerrero (JRC), Saskia Vermeylen (Strathclyde University) and Jemma Woolmore (Independent Artist)

Commissioned by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in the framework of the SciArt project for the exhibition NaturArchy: Towards a Natural Contract