June 2013 public engagement events

Credit: Daredevil Labs

The sun has finally arrived and just in time for festival season too. Make the most of the good weather and get out and about to some of the fantastic events supported by the Wellcome Trust’s public engagement awards.

Yesterday was the first day of the Cheltenham Science Festival. Once again, the team behind the festival have developed a varied programme to satisfy most appetites. For example, fresh from their expedition to Mount Everest, BBC presenter Greg Foot and mountaineer Nick Insley will be talking about their scientific escapades at the world’s highest lab. With a host of live demos and a whole-audience experiment, the Xtreme Everest Project is at midday on Saturday 8 June.

For the music fans among you, Professor Roger Kneebone’s World of Surgery series is taking place as part of the Cheltenham Music Festival, 3-14 July. Highlights include World of Surgery: The Ensemble Performance on 13 July: it’s a discussion with Professor Aaron Williamon on the secrets behind a successful ensemble, drawing a comparison between vascular surgeons and string quartet players.

Elsewhere in June, Elastic Theatre’s JULIUS, a multi-screen film exploring the nature of obsessional thoughts and the superstitious beliefs associated with them, will be showing 7-14 June at the Spitalfields Music Festival in east London. The screening on 12 June will be followed by a discussion, while on 21 June, the cast will present a live pop-up performance at the GV art gallery.

Beyond the festivals

Spanning 70 years and four interconnecting stories, Curious Directive’s multimedia play After the Rainfall is on 14 and 15 June, 7.30pm, at the Arts Depot in North Finchley, London. The play connects the arid Egyptian desert, the British Museum and a quiet village green, all the while likening the spread of human ideas to an ant colony.

Gendered Intelligence’s project GI’s Anatomy: Drawing Sex, Drawing Gender, Drawing Bodies will be showcased at the Central School of Speech & Drama in London on Thursday 27June, 5.30-9pm. An exhibition of life drawings from the project will be accompanied by a discussion exploring the science of sex and gender.

One for the kids, the BEANii children’s theatre show Harriet and Jake and the Victorian Adventure is at 6pm on Saturday 29 June at St Saviour’s Pimlico, St George’s Square. Created during a series of workshops exploring the health impacts of nutrition, exercise and mind-set, the show looks at the issues affecting children in the Victorian era compared with children today. A discussion event will follow the performance.

Still on

Jordan Baseman’s Deadness exhibition is at Matt’s Gallery in London until 21 July (open Wednesday to Sunday, 12-6pm). An exhibition in three parts, Deadness features multiple 35mm slide projections with sound, a film called ‘The Last Walk’ and a series of new photographic works. The exhibits explore the historical, cultural and sociological relationship between embalming and photographic portraiture.

If you are inspired to go along to any of the events above, please come back to leave a comment and let us know what you thought!

Thanks to our Engaging Science colleague Lois Browne for the info.