Science story telling
May 14, 2012
Diamond celebrates 10 years of creativity in science story telling
Stitching, sculpture and slug-like aliens all formed part of a special 10th Anniversary event that was on Friday 11th May at Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility, on the Harwell Science & Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
Local dignitaries, representatives from museums and art galleries, and primary school children were taken inside Diamond’s silver doughnut shaped building. Within it is a machine, known as a synchrotron, which generates incredibly bright light from infra-red to X-rays and is used by thousands of scientists every year to study all kinds of materials, from artificial hips and samples of the Mary Rose to virus proteins and potential new fuel sources.Guests also had the opportunity to view the many creative projects that have helped to bring the fascinating range of science undertaken at Diamond to the attention of the general public during the past decade.
Pictured above: Children from nearby Chilton Primary School look on in horror at a 450 year-old nit comb from the Mary Rose Trust.
Pictured left: Ed Vaizey MP, Alan Chadwick from the University of Kent and Mark Jones from the Mary Rose Trust with artefacts from the Tudor warship. “The science that is happening here at Diamond matters to everyone in society. It will influence our futures in all manner of ways. What medicines we take, what energy supplies we have at our disposal and how we power our cars. Synchrotron research will also play a part in determining what condition the artefacts, paintings and historical documents in our cathedrals, museums and art galleries are in 100 years from now. By developing a range of different ways for the public to get involved and learn about Diamond, the facility is doing a great deal to inspire the young and help them develop skills for the future, and teach us all something of the amazingly diverse range of experiments that take place here on a daily basis.”Ed Vaizey MP for Wantage & Didcot and Minister for Culture, Communications & the Creative Industries
One of the projects on display was Light Reading, where the public were invited to write short stories inspired by the facility. The Light Reading competition was launched last September as a way of introducing Diamond to a wider public audience. The Sound of Science scooped top prize with a story in which a harassed scientist leading a school tour of a synchrotron is heckled by a slug-like alien and as the tale unfolds we get to the bottom of their mysterious visit to planet earth.
Isabelle Boscaro-Clarke, Diamond’s Head of Communications, comments, “As 2012 is our 10th Anniversary, and we’ve already welcomed over 23,000 visitors to Diamond, we thought it was an appropriate moment to pause and celebrate all that we have achieved in terms of creatively communicating our science to the public with the help of collaborators such as the WI, Oxford Inspires, the North Wall Gallery and Science Oxford.” Pictured above: Diamond Chairman Lord Broers, Vice Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire John Harwood, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries Ed Vaizey MP and Director of Oxford Inspires Kathelene Weiss perusing some of the Light Reading competition entries.
“Looking ahead, I am delighted to be able to announce that we are launching a Light Reading story competition for pupils of Oxfordshire secondary schools this September and are working on plans to run an international public version with other synchrotrons around the world. This idea has come about in talks with Oxford Inspires, who are leading the bid for Oxford to become World Book Capital in 2014. Our 10th Anniversary will also see us open our doors for five days in June when we are holding a series of special Inside Diamond public, schools and Harwell Campus open days.”
Diamond’s creative side first revealed itself in the form of stitching and the ‘Designs for Life’ project, which saw the science facility collaborating with The Oxford Trust, and the Oxfordshire Federation of the Woman’s Institute (WI). While stitching and science might not, on the face of it, go together this first venture into creativity in science story telling, funded by the Wellcome Trust, was a huge success.
During the project, WI members sat down with scientists and learnt a great deal about the research that Diamond is capable of doing and the scientists learnt about dying materials and producing textile art. The 30 textile panels that were produced were all inspired by images that come from experiments done at synchrotrons. These results are often related to some of the most troubling diseases known to humans, diseases such cancer, HIV and Alzheimer’s. The ‘Designs for Life’ toured before going on permanent display at Diamond (Pictured right, on display at the Northwall Gallery).Other projects that have taken Diamond’s science story telling into creative areas are the World’s Largest Diffraction Pattern, another textile piece supported by local biotech company Evotec, which saw over 5,000 people sew stitches and learn how diffraction patterns work like knitting patterns to enable scientists to create a 3D representative of the structure of a specific biological target.
Finally, the beautiful works created by Diamond’s three artists in residence, who worked in metal, painting and textiles, show how science can inspire art in ways that give scientists new and creative ways to explain their work to the public.Diamond’s upcoming Inside Diamond opens days are free but registration is required. To register for the June events, please visit www.diamond.ac.uk/Home/Events/InsideDiamond For its 10th birthday, Diamond has also launched a blog www.diamond10.org where everyone who has had a connection to the project can contribute and leave their perspectives. It’s also where anyone new to Diamond can find some useful facts and background to the project.
Artists in residence, pictured above left: Anne Griffiths and Sharon Wyper; right: Paula Groves.
Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron science facility, located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
Diamond Light Source Ltd
Diamond House
Harwell Science & Innovation Campus
Didcot
Oxfordshire
OX11 0DE
Copyright © Diamond Light Source. Diamond Light Source® and the Diamond logo are registered trademarks of Diamond Light Source Ltd
Registered in England and Wales at Diamond House, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire, OX11 0DE, United Kingdom. Company number: 4375679. VAT number: 287 461 957. Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) number: GB287461957003.