The workshop will be exploring the writings and life of Darwin, with a particular focus on how these aspects might inspire contemporary artists and new cultural work as a whole. Leading the discussions and presentations will be Prof David Amigoni (Keele University), artist Ilana Halperin, Prof Jeff Wallace (University of Glamorgan) and Randal Keynes (The Charles Darwin Trust) with Species of Origin investigators Dr Andrew Patrizio (eca) and Prof Emilios Christodoulidis (Glasgow University).

Pooling expertise on Darwin and the Victorian scientific and cultural climate with current cultural insights, we will investigate how the arts, natural sciences and philosophy might come together to re-imagine Darwin's life and work. Downloadable audio files of the workshop proceedings will be available on this website in October.

For more information on the project please click on the workshop icon on the home page and see our Project page or email Dr Sara Barnes s.barnes@eca.ac.uk

Darwin's pioneering masterpiece The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animal (1872) provides the point of reference for a major exhibition project at The Natural History Museum, London in 2009.

In cooperation with Naturkundemuseum Berlin, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Centre for Literature and Cultural Studies Berlin, and the Centre for the History of Knowledge, Zurich, the exhibition 'Expressions' will transform the exhibition space into an observational laboratory in which the emotional and cultural relationships between humans and other animals, and between physical behaviour and the emotions are explored.

For the exhibition, artists and writers will make manifest expressions of emotions in both body and mind of animals and humans through provocative observations and descriptions. New developments in media technologies, science and the arts will afford exciting insights into the origins of emotions and their expression. Touring to Berlin late 2008, Natural History Museum, London, summer 2009, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, autumn 2009, a different focus for each exhibition venue will explore the current and historic research into emotions from a cultural perspective.
www.nhm.ac.uk

Glasgow based artist Ilana Halperin has a new exhibition at doggerfisher in Edinburgh.

Including drawings, photographs, film and installation, 'Towards Heilprin Land' presents the artist's ongoing fascination and narrative exploration of geological features - in this case icebergs. Ilana's previous work has involved volcanoes, earthquakes and the subterranean world of caves and she is currently researching the Caledonian orogeny. A paticipating artist in the Species of Origin project, Ilana will be discussing her work with Dr Andrew Patrizio (Edinburgh College of Art) and Bryony Bond (curator of the Alchemy project at Manchester Museum) at doggerfisher on Saturday 8 December 2007. All welcome.
www.ilanahalperin.com
www.doggerfisher.com

The forthcoming Darwin anniversaries in 2009 are generating creative endeavours in the theatre with existing productions and new plays delving into the life of Darwin.

These include 'Re:Design' by Craig Baxter, commissioned by Cambridge University and performed at Cambridge Science Festival in March and the Lancaster University 'Science and Religion' conference in July. The play is based on the correspondence between Darwin and the American botanist Asa Gray who promoted Darwin's ideas in the US. A tour of both the UK and US are planned for 2008. Another touring play, from New Zealand, will take place in late 2009. Written by Michael Burton, 'Collapsing Creation (or The Sex Life of the Barnacles)' will be premiered in NZ in 2008. The play centres around two difficult periods in Darwin's life - his self-doubt around the times of his barnacle research and the death of his daughter, Annie, and also the period following the publication of the 'Origin'. More information about these productions can be found on the Darwin200 website

Bent Architect is a theatre company based in Wakefield and they are developing 'Darwins Worms' for tour during the autumn of 2008 and Spring 2009. Bent Architect, supported by the Arts Council, Wakefield City Council and Contact Theatre Group in Manchester have recently held a workshop on the development of the project, exploring natural selection in terms of 'random action,' 'chance', 'energy', 'cataclysmic events' and 'brute force.' Concentrating on the relevance of Darwin's work in our own daily lives, you can read their blog, view their photographs and discover more about their work at:
http://darwinsworms.blogspot.com

Against Nature: the hybrid forms of modern sculpture. A new exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

The Galapagos Conservation Trust is establishing an artists' research residency programme for British artists.

The Gulbenkian Galapagos Artists' Residencies will enable up to 12 leading artists to spend time in the Galapagos archipelago to reflect on its unique nature, its historic value and current importance, and the human and conservation challenges it faces. The rare wildlife and dramatic habitats of the islands, their historical role in shaping Darwin's ideas and their pristine nature have made them a double World Heritage Site. Artists will be invited to engage with the Galapagos on their own terms, to mix with both the local and scientific communities on the islands, feel inspired to make work connected to their experiences and encouraged to share it with a wide audience.

The residency programme will initially run for three years. It is being managed in conjunction with the Charles Darwin Foundation, the trust's key partner and the main scientific research organisation in the islands, and curated by Greg Hilty of Plus Equals. Dorothy Cross and Fiona Shaw have already visited the archipelago as a pilot for the programme, and Jyll Bradley and Marcus Coates (who has also been involved with the Species of Origin project) are due to visit later this year. The Galapagos Conservation Trust will also explore opportunities to present work that arises from the artists' visits. The residencies have been made possible by the support of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
www.gct.org
www.darwin200.org

Tania Kovats has been selected as the Darwin canopy artist at the Natural History Musuem.

The proposal for the new permanent installation at the Museum was inspired by Darwin's first diagram of an evolutionary tree in his notebooks. The work involves taking a thin vertical slice through a 200 year old oak tree including the roots and branches and  inserting it into the ceiling in a process similar to veneering. Tree will be one of the Museum's largest specimens at over 17 metres long and work will begin immediately on sourcing and preparing the cross-section. Kovats' winning proposal, along with the nine other shortlisted proposals, is on display at the Museum until 14 September 2008 and the new work will be revealed on the bicentenary of Darwin's birth, 12 February 2009. The project is funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
www.gulbenkian.org.uk/
www.nhm.ac.uk

Galapagos inspired new work by Dorothy Cross on show in Shrewsbury.

Stage, by Dorothy Cross, was commissioned by Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery and is currently on show at the Unitarian Church in the town-centre which Darwin attended regularly as a child along with his mother. Accompanied on her research trip to the Galapagos Islands by actress Fiona Shaw, Cross presents video work  exploring current conditions on the Islands which also reflects on the evolution of art itself and the role for artists within a world facing increasing environmental and cultural changes. The project was funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation as the first of its Galapagos Residency Programme and marks the launch of the Shrewsbury Darwin200 celebrations. The exhibition is open until 26 July 2008. For further information please contact Exhibitions Officer, Adrian Plant, adrian.plant@shrewsbury.gov.uk
www.gulbenkian.org.uk/

An exhibition and symposium, The Animal Gaze, has been organised by London Metropolitan University

The Animal Gaze is an event developed from practice-led university research in fine art. The intention is academic: to exhibit and examine new ways in which animals appear in contemporary art and the contingent ethics and aesthetics to which such practice may be subject.
The exhibition shows the work of thirty artists and will open at Unit 2 Gallery, London E1 from November 13 to December13th 2008. In January 2009 the show tours to the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World at Exeter, Plymouth City Museum & Gallery, Plymouth Arts Centre, Plymouth College of Art & Design and the Roland Levinsky Gallery, University of Plymouth.
 The two-day symposium will be held at Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media & Design (London Metropolitan University), November 20-21 2008. Invited speakers include  artists, curators, academics and art historians with a special interest in the representation of animals in art today. To book a delegate place at the symposium and for further information, please visit the animal Gaze website:
www.animalgaze.org/index.html

Edinburgh Fringe Festival includes a  dance performance at the Zoo

 
Edinburgh Zoo is playing host to a rather unusual group of new arrivals for 11 days in August. A group of dancers from Janis Claxton Dance will be performing in one the Zoo's enclosures from 5-16 August as part of the Dance Base Fringe programme. ‘Enclosure 44 – Humans', The show, created by Janis Claxton, will be an improvised piece set around certain structures and rules. For instance, there will be no verbal communication between the dancers - all communication and interaction will be expressed through movement. It has been designed to encourage people to think about our connection to animals and to discover the animal within us all.
www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/

Dreams of Science is an exciting new exhibition from Russia at Wolverhampton Art Gallery.

Dreams of Science: The Life of Charles Darwin in the Russian Imagination depicts fascinating scenes from the lives of 18th and 19th century science pioneers who contributed to the theory of evolution and influenced Charles Darwin, alongside scene's from Darwin's own life. The exhibition which is on loan from the State Darwin Museum, Moscow includes the work of Russian artists M.Yesuchevskii (1880-1928) and V.Yevstafiev (1916-1990s).
The exhibition runs from 29 November 2008 until 17 January 2009
www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/wolves

For one week only, Rhizoma exhibition in Edinburgh.

Rhizoma is an exhibition of work by three visual artists, in which each contemplates something of their individual notions of evolution. Thorunn Bjornsdottir's artworks originate from research into an emerging ecosystem and are based on documentation of scientific work conducted on the volcanic island of Surtsey. Emma Hambly's exhibited works are concerned with biological evolution as well as personal and cultural perceptions of progress: glass ecosystems question and illustrate processes of microbial and global change, and the knowledge associated with them, whilst her drawings and other objects examine considerations of development and relatedness. Jenny Paine's drawings and text works explore notions of evolution in a narrative sense.  Her interest in evolution is poetic and personalised, an interest that explores our day to day thoughts on the subject and our cultural consciousness. 
See the exhibition at Edinburgh College of Art in the t e n t exhibition space, Evolution House, 2 West Port, Edinburgh.
Exhibition open Tue 30 Sept - Fri 3 Oct 2008.
www.eca.ac.uk/index.php

Soon!!: Hybrids and Trondheim Matchmaking in Norway

Hybids is an exhibition featuring the work of Amy Youngs (US), Marta De Menezes (P), Peter Fleming (CAN), Victoria Vesna (US) Geroge Gessert (US) and Eva Sutton (US). The exhibition is part of Trondheim Matchmaking 2008, the festival for art and technology at the Trondheim Electronic Arts Festival. The Festival also includes a conference highlighting  how knowledge from new research and insight  can radically  change human biology and self understanding, and how art practice both becomes influenced by this development, as well as being able to influence it. The keynote speaker is British researcher and artist Roy Ascott.
Building upon the understanding that a species can be defined as “a population or group of populations whose members have the potential to interbreed with one another in nature to produce viable, fertile offspring, but who cannot successfully interbreed with members of other species,” the Festival takes place 17 and 18 October 2008, and the exhibtion runs October 17 - November 9 2008.
httpmatchmaking.no/wp/2008/