Art communicating science

A tumble of ideas today as I listened to Diane Blomfield, Director of Project TEMP at the Corban Estate Arts Centre, dream and describe and colour in the very broad sweep of an ambitious 2017 outdoor arts event of multiple installations to be created on site by artists and scientists. An event to "activate the grounds" with ideas and activity and intriguing symbolic experiences engaging visitors in ideas about climate change. This is right up my alley.

With us was Martin Sutcliffe, Director of the Corban Estate Arts Centre, and colleagues Nina Seja, Bobby Hung and Shaughan Woodcock, all of us looking for ways to get students involved. as volunteers, doing projects, assisting the artists, being part of event management, doing audience / participant research. I feel another collaborative community project coming on. I'm thinking and Diane is excited about the usefulness of a participant survey for collecting evidence of what behaviour change the event has achieved. One part of the event will be, as visitors exit the large site where they'll have engaged with several installations, they'll go out through - not the "gift shop" but an "eco-village" where they'll be asked to make a commitment to changing their carbon-creating behaviours.

Right now the site where Project TEMP will take place in March/April 2017 is a green space dotted with historic buildings and the remnants of the old Corban winery. I can't wait to see it nearer the time, when installations take shape and the four weeks of the event will see crowds passing through, their minds stilled in some way not only by the magnitude of the climate change issue but by the awareness that they can make meaningful changes.

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