This September, Soapbox Science London will have a new and exciting element! Who is a scientist and who is an artist? Can the work someone in a lab coat is doing relate to a painting, or a dancer, or be understood through music? The new project aims to bring science to arts fans and art to scientists. By challenging artists and scientists to work together, Soapbox Art & Science will bring difficult science concepts to the public in exciting, innovative and engaging ways. 12 of the UK’s leading women in science will take to their soapboxes to showcase their science to the general public, alongside some amazing local artists. The new Soapbox Art & Science 2017 event will capitalize on Soapbox Science’s current strengths to widen the audiences exposed to science carried out by women and will facilitate communication and collaboration between the arts and science communities.
Soapbox Art & Science London will be taking place in Thamesmead as part of Thamesmead Festival which will be part of Totally Thames
Details of the location and timing of the event
Date: Saturday 16th September 2017
Address: Southmere Park, Thamesmead
Closest Train station- Abbey Wood
Time: 2pm – 5pm
Sponsors
We couldn’t run this London event without the generous logistical and financial support of our sponsors. Since 2014, our overall whole initiative is supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council. We are very grateful for their financial support of the new Soapbox Art & Science project.
We are very grateful for the support of Overleaf who have sponsored the London Soapbox Art & Science event 2017. Founded in 2012 and with over 600,000 registered users, Overleaf is an academic authorship tool that allows seamless collaboration and effortless manuscript submission, all underpinned by cloud-technology. By providing an intuitive online collaborative writing and publishing platform, Overleaf is making the process of writing, editing and publishing scientific documents quicker and easier. Researchers and academics can now write, collaborate, and publish with a single click, directly from the Overleaf web-app. Publishers and Institutions are partnering with Overleaf to provide customized writing templates, simple reference tool linking, and one-click publishing submission links.
Visit the website and follow @overleaf on Twitter.
Read our interview with Software Developer Hugh O’Brien
Volunteer with Soapbox Art & Science London
Are you passionate about science and love talking to people about it? Do you want to help raise awareness about gender equality in science careers? Soapbox Art & Science London is looking for volunteers to help out at their event on 16th September 2017!
Please sign up here
Soapbox Science is not just about the speakers. Without a supportive team of committed, enthusiastic people, a Soapbox event simply cannot happen. Each event relies on an animated team of up to 20 volunteers. Volunteers play a crucial role in rounding up the public, chatting to them informally about science, supporting the speakers by managing props and helping to calm any pre-box nerves, as well as handing out Soapbox goodies to lucky audience members! But perhaps the most important role of the volunteers is gathering data so we can effectively monitor the success of the event: volunteers carry out the bulk of our streamlined evaluation process, through interviews, observations and counting footfall.
Join us for an afternoon of fun, informal and inspiring art & science and help challenge ideas about who can be a scientist!
Our Scientists & Artists
Our new Art & Science event saw strong competition to appear at this London’s event with over 30 applications by scientists received. The selected speakers and their discussion topics included:
Group One – 2pm – 3pm
Amy Knight, Central St Martins, University of the Arts London & Sophia Goldberg (@SophiaGberg), Queen Mary University of London “How does Einstein’s v Newton’s gravity effect structure on the largest scales: from clusters of galaxies to the universe”
Danica Desilva, Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London, & Dr Elizabeth Boakes (@BoakesE ), University College London “Mind the Gap… in the ecosystem”
Helen Hugh-Jones (@nells_originals ), Nell’s Originals, & Rehemat Bhatia (@rehemat_), University College London “Fossil plankton and the big climate stories they have to tell!”
Julie Light (@juliejlight), Central St Martins, University of the Arts London, & Dr Niamh Nowlan (@NiamhNowlan), Imperial College London “Why do babies kick? For their back and bones!”
Group Two – 3pm – 4pm
Professor Marika Taylor (@taylor_marika), University of Southampton “Have you ever wondered what’s inside an electron?”
Sunayana Bhargava (@SunayanaB), University of Sussex “Astronomy Appetiser: Dark bites from the Dark Energy Survey”
Lisa Pettibone (@iblameyoko), Central St Martins, University of the Arts London & Lisa Morrison (@lisanmorrison), University of Surrey “Did you know you’ve never touched anything and you never will?”
Dr Imogen Ptáček, Kings College London “Ultrasound surgery: treating disease with the power of sound”
Group Three – 4pm – 5pm
Meri Lahti, Central St Martins, University of the Arts London “Drawing Emotions”
Jill Mueller, Central St Martins, University of the Arts London, & Bella Boulderstone (@BBoulderstone), University of Southampton “What can supermassive black holes tell us about the universe?”
Hannah Battershell (@hannahbatts), Artist, & Dr Patricia Brekke (@KikaB8), Zoological Society of London “Can immigration rescue threatened populations?”