Art collaborations
LCAB is keen to support the creation of new artistic work inspired by the Centre’s research.
We hope that the collaborations, projects and commissions we undertake will generate persuasive and innovative art, inspire further interdisciplinary research and engage with different audiences.
Artist residencies
In 2022/2023 LCAB researchers collaborated with four artists to create a variety of artworks to reach new audiences and challenge our own approaches to research.
Please note, we don’t currently have any funded residencies available.
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Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity
Amy Cutler
Amy collaborated with Sarah Bezan to explore complex environmental data to generate new real-time cinematic performances, and a permanently self-composing online film.
The finished work is an ongoing ensemble live cinema project titled SPECIES PIRACY inspired by the dark arts of de-extinction. It draws on histories of moving image projection as a form of both life and afterlife, from biological experimentation to dream palaces, seances, phantasmagoria and other cinematic manifestations.
Laura Denning
Laura collaborated with Chantal Berry and visually impaired participants from MySight York to understand how we engage with our natural environment. This included sensory walkshops, soundscapes and the use of braille as a tactile device for triggering sonic works which bring habitats through time alive to understand the rich ecoacoustic environmental history which we have lost and evoke greater emotional investment in biodiversity gain.
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Julia Schauerman
Julia collaborated with Theo Tomking to produce an acousmatic story composition - a soundscape mixed with spoken word which evokes specific places and time periods.
The final work entitled Growing Stories for Different Climates explores synergies between food growing, climate and diasporic connections amongst black and minority ethnic peoples in the UK and beyond.
May Sumbwanyambe
May collaborated with Molly Brown to produce a BBC Radio 4 play grounded in the harsh realities and opposing perspectives of wildlife trade regulations in Africa.
The final work Back Home tells the story of Noreen who returns to her native Zambia after 20 years in the UK. As the head of a wildlife charity she’s come back to give a speech about animal conservation in Africa but her family want to talk about difficult issues closer to home. Molly also went on to curate an ivory exhibition with the National Trust for Scotland and won a University of York Open Research Award for this work.
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Long Boi trail
Long Boiology is a University of York art trail installed in 2023 by the Department of Biology to celebrate research, education and a very famous alumni: Long Boi, the runner duck. Twelve life-size Long Boi silhouettes were decorated to represent and communicate themes in the biosciences stretching from cell structures to climate change.
Members of LCAB produced the following designs:
Scientific illustration
Jack Hatfield and Tadhg Carroll collaborated with wildlife artist Alex Lovegrove to produce vivid, artistic depictions conveying the narrative of their work. The artwork was integrated into the figures of their paper, Globally abundant birds disproportionately inhabit anthropogenic environments, portraying gradients of ‘relatively natural’ through to ‘anthropogenic’ land-use types, as well as a selection of bird species.
Anthropo-Zine
Coordinated by Joshua Sammy, members of LCAB produced the Anthropo-Zine as part of York Zine Fest in July 2024.
This collaborative project brought together researchers who work on a range of areas from elephant behaviour and macroecology to agricultural science and rights-based approaches to conservation.
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Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity