Art, science, and the biosocial

Baum & Leahy reflect on their Visiting Arts Fellowship, a rare and invaluable opportunity to be immersed in the fascinating and diverse research of the Centre.

Over the year they also took time to explore and consider the nature of arts-research collaboration itself.The CBSS Visiting Arts Fellowship presented a rare and invaluable opportunity to immerse ourselves in the fascinating and diverse research of the Centre for a year, whilst also taking time to explore and consider the nature of arts-research collaboration itself. As artists interested in multidisciplinary exchange with researchers it has been a chance to reflect on questions such as: What do arts-research collaborations bring into each of the practices? What are the inherent power structures of these often institutionalised relationships? Who are the audience or public that we wish and get to reach and involve, and why? What value might exchanges between the biosciences, social science and art bring in times of crises?

Research collaborations

As well as engaging with a wide range of CBSS’s researchers work, the fellowship has been an opportunity to nurture our long term arts-research collaboration with CBSS researcher Joana Formosinho. Attending the weekly seminars and facilitating one, learning about the centre’s research, a public facing event: Gutscapes: Meditative Encounters with Microbial Messmates for Being Human Festival at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, and a pop-up at their festival launch at University College London, developing an online platform and co-hosting an arts-research gathering with Joana, attending and contributing to the CBSS Reflective Events in February, and enjoying a supported and carved-out ongoing weekly dialogue with Joana over a year – these are some of the activities and outcomes from our fellowship. This space has allowed us to refine and reiterate our ideas in ways not possible in short-term or more goal-oriented project structures.

Joana talks to an audience, seated on cushions on the floor, with Amanda and Rose sat behind her. — Gutscapes: Meditative Encounters with Microbial Messmates at the Scottish Storytelling Centre for Being Human Festival 2024. Image: Delia Spatareanu

An example of this is our collaborative event Gutscapes which we have done three iterations of now; with publics as part of the Being Human festival, as also as a site of trans-disciplinary knowledge exchange within an academic setting (Encountering Biosocial Microbiomes meeting). Gutscapes is a guided journey into the biosocial composition of the gut mucosal wall; which then acts as a site for individual reflection and group debate around the social factors shaping microbiomes. While the overall concept and structure has remained the same throughout each version, we have redeveloped it in an iterative process – listening and refining each time, incorporating participants’ perspectives. Support structures from the CBSS fellowship has enabled us to experiment with this arts-research public engagement project as a living, evolving and dynamic reflection of social science debates and participant perspectives.

Research-led reflections

In the final month of the fellowship we gave a talk including a short experiential intervention at the CBSS Reflective Events, and co-hosted a transdisciplinary two-day meeting with Joana. The talk was part of the second day of celebrations under the overall theme of ‘Between collaboration and critique’. Here we shared examples of projects where we work with public engagement across disciplines to explore challenges and opportunities of our transitional times.

Baum and Leahy talk in front of a presentation of their art, with an audience in front. — CBSS Reflective Event, Edinburgh Futures Institute. Image Craig Nicol

Following our talk there was a panel discussion entitled ‘Art and science in times of crises’ framed and organised by Karissa Patton and Lukas Engelmann. Highlighting the CBSS’s engagement with art researchers, the panel with Joana Formosinho, Nandini Manjunath, Kirsten Lloyd, and Olivia Plender asked what collaboration between science and art can achieve in a world in crisis. The discussions that ensued, generated by questions from the audience, constitute one example of a moment when immersion within a research-led context brought us new reflections on our artistic practice.

The theme of ‘slowness’ and pauses for reflexivity circulated in the room – referring to philosopher activist Bayo Akomolafe’s essay A Slower Urgency which he starts by saying “I learned, a long time ago, about a particular saying from the continent I grew up on: “the times are urgent; let us slow down.”” Joana noted “(the) importance of making moments of pause, and then in those moments of pause: ask the difficult questions that then if resolved may accelerate sustainable futures”. She continued to discuss how the triangulation between natural science, social science and artistic practice can contribute to social capacity for crisis response. The social sciences offer critical and contextualised approaches to the natural sciences, while artistic experiences invite us to inhibit and grasp these complex networks of knowledge - and craft new imaginaries. In the Q&A session, Steve Sturdy brought attention to the etymology of the word ‘crisis’ as stemming from ‘decision’; a decisive or defining moment in time – an opportunity to reflect on and review current structures. This discussion was greatly evocative for us, and shed light on our own practice, which is aimed at nurturing new imaginaries and facilitating moments of pause and immersion in the wonder of complexity – approaching crisis as a beginning rather than an end.

Encountering the Biosocial Microbiome

In the meeting ‘Encountering the Biosocial Microbiome’ which Joana Formosinho organised and we co-hosted; we continued to explore this crux between (micro)biology, social structures and artistic engagement. This transdisciplinary meeting was funded by the Centre for the Social Study of Microbes and included practitioners working across, between or within art, social and natural science, history, fermentation. Together we experimented with formats inspired by both academic and artistic approaches and methods – from sensorial immersion to individual reflections and shared discussions in response to academic texts and Joana’s framing of the meeting, to ‘keynote listeners’, research perspectives, poetic responses and collective collaging. The gathering manifested and helped nurture the momentum which is emerging within biosocial research and artistic practice, with a focus on the manifold figure of the holobiont.

A close-up of a collage reads 'open eyes, ears', Microbe, 'whycrobe, yourchrobe, ourchrobe', 'society, trouble', with swirling cut out images including a planet, branches, corridors and oozing gloop. — Collective collaging during ‘Encountering the Biosocial Microbiome’ meeting. Image: Joana Formosinho

Future trajectories

In the latter part of the fellowship we have been developing, with Joana, the Holobiont Collaboratory – an online platform aimed at documenting and reflecting on processes of collaboration across the social sciences, natural sciences and arts; and activating further collaborations. The content is still fermenting, but the landing page is live at www.holobiontcollaboratory.com. We’re also excited to potentially take part in a new transdisciplinary exploration, with the working title ‘Embodied ecologies’ (drawing from Andrea Ford’s work), together with a group of artists and researchers, including Bryony Ella, Eva Aymami Rene, and CBBS members Andrea Ford, Laia Ventura Garcia, Marie de Lutz, Tamara Schwertel, and Joana Formosinho.

Close-up of a paper wheel, with writing on it, title says 'Intervenes to change'. — Collective collaging during ‘Encountering the Biosocial Microbiome’ meeting. Image: Joana Formosinho

A year at CBSS has had a profound effect on our practice, and expanded our research and practice in important ways. In a time of multiple crises, the need for both rigorous science and socially engaged practices is foundational in shaping more just and sustainable systems. As artists we hope to continue to be part of creating encounters which embrace these multiple ways of knowing, while nurturing a hopeful earthbound wish – to collectively facilitate and sustain conditions that support life and living well, together.

Thanks to members of CBSS for welcoming us into their community so openly, to the speakers of all the fascinating CBSS seminars we attended throughout the fellowship, to Catherine Montgomery for supporting throughout, Lorna Thompson, Jenny Bos, and Miriam Brand-Spencer for logistical and oragnisational guidance, and to Joana Formosinho, for a year of sharing, collaborating, inspiring, play-thinking, and continuing to sweeten and strengthen our bubbling symbiosis.