Maker Jam Talks

In 2020, the One Cell At A Time public engagement project commissioned six visual and digital artists, designers and performers to bring their perspectives, artistic methods and skill sets to critically explore two important questions for the HCA initiative, working with communities across Newcastle upon Tyne, London, Cambridge and Oxford.

• What is it to be normal?
• What influences peoples’ value and trust in research involving tissue donation and open access data?

Each city’s commission was informed by its own distinct but connected theme; Speculative Normality (Oxfordshire), Embodying Normality (Newcastle upon Tyne), Sensing Normality (London) and Performing Normality (Cambridgeshire). These themes offered a variety of ways for communities to experience the science of the Human Cell Atlas through different creative lenses.

Join our One Cell At A Time commissioned artists, Anna Macdonald, boredomresearch, Stacey Philisidias and Baum & Leahy in conversation, as they discuss their experience of creatively responding to the science of the Human Cell Atlas through socially engaged art-making.

Respondents: Each artist commission was supported by a community engagement producer who has enabled authentic connections to be fostered with communities across each of our target cities and has been instrumental in producing and delivering an ambitious public engagement programme of collaborative arts-science-community events for the Human Cell Atlas project. Dominic Smith (Newcastle Upon Tyne), Justine Boussard (London) Fusion Arts (Oxford), Cambridge Junction (Cambridge) will join our conversation as respondents during the Q&A.

Recording: