BIOGRAPHY
Sarah Craske is a British transdisciplinary artist who works in the liminal space between knowledge constructions, specifically science and technology, history, religion, magic and philosophy. Their work explores our relationships with various forms of climate breakdown and environmental entanglements, in an attempt to challenge assumptions and to bring about change. They create bodies of work that are resultant of long periods of research, usually in collaboration with other disciplines.
They graduated from Kent Institute of Art and Design (First-Class BA in Fine Art) and the University of the Arts London – Central Saint Martins (Distinction MA Art and Science).
Exhibitions include Chatham Historic Dockyard, UK; SVA Flatiron Gallery, New York, USA; Whitstable Biennale, UK; Science Gallery Bengaluru, India; Basel Pharmacy Museum, Switzerland; Holden Gallery, Manchester, UK; The Warburg Institute, London, UK; Chethams’ Library, Manchester, UK, the oldest public library in the English-speaking world; British Science Festival; International Festival of Projections, UK.
Awards include an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice Grant, UK; Jerwood Whitstable Biennale Artist Attachments, UK; Honorary Research Fellow, University of Kent, UK; shortlisted for the John Ruskin Prize, UK; Biofaction Artist Residency, Austria; the University of the Arts London – Central Saint Martins Vice Chancellor Scholarship, and the NOVA award (selected from 1,300 University of the Arts London graduates) which “recognises and showcases the creative stars of the future, the innovators and risk takers”; Arts and Humanities Science in Culture Innovation Award in recognition of their “innovative contribution to collaborative inter-relationships between the sciences, arts & humanities”, UK.
Teaching and conference presentations include Associate lecturer at University of the Arts, Central Saint Martins (MA Art and Science); Science Gallery Bengaluru, India; Royal Geographical Society, IBG Annual International Conference, UK; Art in Flux: Radical Ecology, The National Gallery, UK; Oxford University, UK; Edinburgh University, UK; University of Basel, Switzerland; ETH Zurich, Switzerland; University of Kent; co-curator of the Science and Arts Section of the British Science Festival.
Their work has been featured in publications including Creating Art and Science Collaboration; Bringing value to organisations (Claudia Schnugg), Palgrave Macmillan; The Art of Antibiotics (Markus Schmidt), Biofaction; Future Fossils (David Farrier), 4th Estate; Frieze; The Quietus; The Guardian; The Indian Express, London Review of Books.
They are Head of Theriac Hunting for The Institute of Unnecessary Research, a global hub for artists and scientists whose work crosses disciplinary boundaries and critiques contemporary research practice.
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CURRICULUM VITAE
CURRENT POSITIONS
2020 – Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts
2020 – Head of Theriac Hunting | Institute of Unnecessary Research
2017 – Founding Director and Artist in Residence | SPACER
2004 – Founding Director | Meltdowns
PREVIOUS POSITIONS
2016-2020 | Co-Recorder | Science & Arts Section | British Science Association
2018-2020 | Visiting Lecturer | MA Art & Science | UAL Central Saint Martins
2013-2020 | Honorary Research Fellow | School of History | University of Kent
2013-2020 | Head of Lichen Hunting | Institute of Unnecessary Research
2013-2015 | Member of The British Lichen Society
2013-2014 | Visiting Lecturer | BA Fine Art | UCA | UK
2009-2018 | Founding Director | Meltdowns Studios
EDUCATION
2016 | MA (Art & Science) | Central Saint Martins, UAL | Distinction
2003 | BA (Fine Art) | Kent Institute of Art and Design | First Class
2022
Shortlisted | Earth Sky Water Residency | Science Gallery Venice | Italy
Award | Time Space Money | a-n The Artists Information Company | UK
Commission | An Eco-Hauntology | Cement Fields | UK
Award | Research grant to continue interdepartmental disciplinary research to platform non-human voices and explore ways of representing ecological entanglement | University of Kent | UK
Group Exhibition | Ancestral Echoes: A Decade of Bio Art | SVA Gramercy Gallery | NYC, USA
Group Exhibition | Afterwardness, Whitstable Biennale | UK
Press | Whitstable Biennale 2022 | Studio International | UK
Press | The elemental pull of Whitstable Biennale | Frieze | UK
Press | The Waves And After: At The Whitstable Biennale | The Quietus | UK
Press | Guardian Top Pick | The Guardian | UK
Press | Going out Staying In | The Guardian | UK
Award | Finding My Way Through The Anthropocene – Developing Your Creative Practice Grant | Arts Council England | UK
Education | Net Zero Pathway to Change:
– Organisational Resilience and Change Towards a Net Zero Goal;
– Zero Carbon Built Environment;
– Reducing Environmental Impact Through Lifecycle Assessment and Smart Product Design;
– Building Foundations for Net Zero Using Data Analytics;
– Sustainability – a Deep Dive into Making the Right Choices;
– Behaviour Change for Net Zero
| University of Kent | UK
Group Exhibition | Darwin’s Paradox: A Decade of Bio Art |SVA Flatiron Gallery | NYC, USA
Group Exhibition & Conference | Sonic Cartography | Chatham Historic Dockyard | UK
2021 – Covid-19 Global Pandemic
Workshop (Online) | THERIAK – a workshop that explored my body of work and its philosophical enquiry into our relationship with disease, working with the mediators of the CONTAGION exhibition | Science Gallery, Bengaluru | India
Group Exhibition (Online) | CONTAGION | Science Gallery Bengaluru | Bengaluru, India
Press | Science Gallery’s new exhibition is a bold, inventive map of a contagion | The Week | India
Press | How an art show explores ways of seeing a contagion | The Indian Express | India
Press | Contagion: Exhibition explores virus transmission through artworks | The Indian Express | India
Press | Research, design, storytelling: how Science Gallery Bengaluru’s CONTAGION exhibition builds public pandemic awareness | YourStory | India
Press | Science Gallery Bengaluru exhibits season on ‘Contagion | IANS | India
Press | How an art show explores ways of seeing a contagion | News Logged | India
Publication & Writing | On Media, On Technology, On Life – Interviews with Innovators | Arthur Clay &Timothy J. Senior | River Publishers
Curator | Climate Breakdown Residency | SPACER | Ramsgate, UK
Workshop (Online) | Ideas Labs – Interdisciplinary workshops that explored culture-led solutions to contemporary ecological issues faced across the Thames Estuary | Creative Estuary, University of Essex and University of Kent | UK
Public Talk (Online) | THERIAK: Behind the Scenes in a Lab | Masterclass | Science Gallery Bengaluru | Bengaluru, India
Commission | (Un)Used Spaces – Interdisciplinary pilot research that explores how to platform ecological entanglement and the non-human voices of the Isle of Grain | Creative Estuary, University of Essex and University of Kent | UK
Residency | New Shores | Self-Initiated interdisciplinary residency in collaboration with Prof. Charlotte Sleigh (UCL) situated in the landscape of Thanet that explores socio-environmental imaginary construction within the context of climate breakdown and sea-level rise. | Thanet, UK
Education (Online) | Drone Piloting – A2 Certificate of Competency | Commercial Drone Training | UK
Conference Presentation (Online) | New Shores: A Socio-Environmental Imaginary for Thanet (in collaboration with Prof. Charlotte Sleigh UCL) | Royal Geographical Society – IBG Annual International Conference 2021 | London, UK
Education (Online) | Follow the Land – a transformational online course on land consciousness | Guardians Worldwide
Group Exhibition | (Un)Used Spaces | Being Human Festival | Light Vessel 21 Gravesend, UK
Award | CONTAGION Exhibition – Falling Walls Engage Winner – Berlin, Germany
Conference Presentation | Art in Flux: Radical Ecology | The National Gallery | UK
2020 – Covid-19 Global Pandemic
Award | Emergency Fund | a-n The Artists Information Company and Freelands Foundation | UK
Press | All hail the microbe | London Review of Books | UK
Publication | Future Fossils | David Farrier | 4th Estate
Award | Jerwood WB Artist Attachment – 18 months placement with funding to support practice development | Jerwood Arts, Cement Fields, Whitstable Biennale | UK
2019
Solo Exhibition | THERIAK – The Past In The Present | The Pharmacy Museum, University of Basel | Switzerland
Public Event | Museums Nacht Basel – THERIAK. VERGANGENES GEGENWÄRTIG | The Pharmacy Museum, University of Basel | Switzerland
Public Talk | THERIAK – The Impact of Interdisciplinarity on a Museum | The Pharmacy Museum, University of Basel | Switzerland
Conference Presentation | Remixing Theriak; Experiments with an ancient cure-all remedy (in collaboration with Martin Kluge, Dr. Sabine Fehlmann, Philipp Koch) | Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Basel | Switzerland
Colloquium Presentation | THERIAK – The Past In The Present | Beyond Resistance; Reimagining the Military Metaphor | University of Edinburgh | UK
Public Talk | THERIAK – The Past In The Present | SPACER | Ramsgate, UK
Publication | Creating Art and Science Collaboration; Bringing value to organisations | Claudia Schnugg | Palgrave Macmillan
Writing | Lowering the tone in art and science collaboration: An analysis from science and technology studies | in collaboration with Prof. Charlotte Sleigh (UCL) and Dr Simon Park | Journal of Science & Popular Culture; Volume 2 Number 1
Award | Theriaca – Funding awarded to support the self-initiated residency on Lemnos that revisited the extraction sites of Lemnian Earth (Terra Sigillata), that explored whether knowledge from the past can indicate where novel antimicrobials could yet be discovered using contemporary scientific methods | Centre for the History of the Sciences Fund, School of History | University of Kent | UK
Conference Presentation | SPACER – Building Interdisciplinarity | Creative Lenses Final Conference: Culture and Business Models in Challenging Times | Cable Factory |Helsinki, Finland
Award | Art and Science Collaboration | Centre for the History of the Sciences Fund, School of History | University of Kent | UK
Conference Presentation | Lowering the tone in art and science collaboration: an analysis from science and technology studies | Interrogating the Art-Science Relationship | Oxford University Department of History of Art and Visual Culture | UK
Group Exhibition | The John Ruskin Prize – Agent of Change | The Holden Gallery | Manchester, UK
Publication | The John Ruskin Prize – Agent of Change 2019 Exhibition Catalogue | The Big Draw | UK
Award | Shortlisted for The John Ruskin Prize – Agent of Change | The Big Draw and The Guild of St George | UK
Residency | Self-initiated residency on Lemnos that revisited the extraction sites of Lemnian Earth (Terra Sigillata), that explored whether knowledge from the past can indicate where novel antimicrobials could yet be discovered using contemporary scientific methods | Lemnos, Greece
Co-Recorder and Curator | Semiconductor: HALO | Art & Science Section for British Science Festival & British Science Association | UK
Research Exchange | Theriac work and ideas shared across 2 teams that had independently remixed the polytemporal cure-all | Hagströmer Library, Karolinska Institutet and Basel Pharmacy Museum | Stockholm, Sweden
2018
Group Exhibition | Metadata – How We Relate To Images | The Lethaby Gallery | Central St Martins, UAL and The Warburg Institute | UK
Residency | Self-initiated residency (funded by the NOVA Award) that wove my collaborative research in synthetic biology and antimicrobial resistance whilst Artist in Residence at ETH Zurich, with its polytemporal wider contextual narratives and therefore the museum’s archives and collections. This built towards a public exhibition | The Pharmacy Museum, University of Basel | Switzerland
Publication & Writing | The Art Of Antibiotics | Ed. By Markus Schmidt | Biofaction
Award | Biological Hermeneutics – Bodleian | Centre for the History of the Sciences Fund, School of History | University of Kent | UK
Residency | Residency and summer school that explored the history and interpretation of the book form, whilst developing my body of work Biological Hermeneutics (funded by University of Kent) | The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford | UK
Appointment | Visiting Lecturer | Central St Martins, UAL | UK
Co-Recorder and Curator | Anna Dumitriu | Art & Science Section for British Science Festival & British Science Association | UK
Solo Exhibition | THERIAK – The Past In The Present | The Pharmacy Museum, University of Basel | Switzerland
Public Talk | Working As An Artist In Scientific Teams | The Pharmacy Museum, University of Basel | Switzerland
Press | Ein Peptid namens Theriak: eine Ausstellung zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft | TagesWoche
2017
Residency | Awarded residency funded by the AHRC – exploring the collections of the oldest public library in the UK and its relationship to the development of Biological Hermeneutics, in preparation for the exhibition of the same year |Chethams Library, Manchester | UK
Solo Exhibition | Biological Hermeneutics | Chethams Library, Manchester | UK
Public Talk | Making Microbes Public | Oxford University | UK
Press | Bacteria From 300-year-old Ovid Poetry Volume Inspires ‘Bio-artist’ | The Guardian
Press | Tipping Point | The Big Issue (curated by Charming Baker)
Press | Microorganisms in the Library: Bringing Centuries-Old Books to Life | Labiotech
Award | Biological Hermeneutics – Impact Project Fund | University of Kent | UK
Writing | Art and science in the UK: a brief history and critical reflection | in collaboration with Prof. Charlotte Sleigh (UCL) | Interdisciplinary Science Reviews; Issue 4 Art and Science 1
Writing | Nine-tenths of the iceberg: research as the unseen component of artists’ work | in collaboration with Prof. Charlotte Sleigh (UCL) | Interalia Magazine
Publication | Contexts of Encounter: How and Where to Criticise Art and Science | Prof. Charlotte Sleigh (UCL) | Journal of Literature and Science, Volume 10, Number2
Residency | Awarded residency to explore the relationship with synthetic biology and antibiotic resistance, as well as testing the transdisciplinary frameworks developed as part of the research commissioned by the AHRC | FP7 EU research project SYNPEPTID, Bioprocess Laboratory (ETH Zürich in Basel, Switzerland) and Biofaction (Vienna, Austria)
Co-Recorder and Curator | Nicola Triscott | Art & Science Section for British Science Festival & British Science Association | UK
2016
Award | AHRC Science In Culture Innovation Award – Metamorphoses | Co- Investigator | University of Kent | UK
Award | Vice Chancellor Scholarship | Central Saint Martins | London, UK
Group Exhibition | International Festival of Projections | UK
Solo Exhibition | Mundus Subterraneous | The Templeman Library – University of Kent | Canterbury, UK
Group Exhibition | Unfolding Realities | Central Saint Martins | London, UK
Education | Completed MA in Art and Science at Central St Martins | London | UK
Award | The Nova Award – Winner | Mullenlowe | UK
Public Talk | Biological Hermeneutics – A practical approach to transdisciplinarity | Central Saint Martins, UAL | UK.
Group Exhibition | Curio: Sites of Wonder | Studio 3 Gallery – University of Kent | Canterbury, UK
Public Talk | Cross fertilization: new landscapes in science and the arts. Panel discussion with Rob Kessler, Tamsin van Essen & Charlotte Sleigh | The British Science Festival | Swansea, UK
Group Exhibition | British Science Festival | Swansea, UK
2015
Award | AHRC Science In Culture Innovation Award – Metamorphoses | Co- Investigator | University of Kent | UK
Award | Vice Chancellor Scholarship | Central Saint Martins | London, UK
Group Exhibition | You Are The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly | The Laundry | London | UK
Group Exhibition | Reflections on Lens On Life | Lethaby Gallery | London | UK
Group Exhibition | Mind_Matter | Central Saint Martins | London | UK
2014
Award | AHRC Science In Culture Innovation Award – Metamorphoses | Co- Investigator | University of Kent | UK
Education | Began MA in Art and Science at Central St Martins | London | UK
Award | Vice Chancellor Scholarship | Central Saint Martins | London, UK
Group Exhibition | Black Box | Central Saint Martins | London | UK
Group Exhibition | In Here Out There | Canterbury Cathedral | UK
2013
Writing | The Secrets Of Bronze Casting | The Crowood Press
Press | Where Arts and Science Collide | ARTSNews | USA
Group Exhibition | Not A Drop | 47-49 Tanner St | London | UK
Group Exhibition | Chain Reaction | Sydney Cooper Gallery | Canterbury | UK
Group Exhibition | Chain Reaction – The Echo Of Narcissus | International Conference in History of Science, Technology and Medicine | Manchester | UK
Public Talk | The Echo of Narcissus | International Conference in History of Science, Technology & Medicine | Manchester | UK
Group Exhibition | We Are All Artists | Hyperlink | Tate Modern | London | UK
2012
Commission | Echo of Narcissus | An art and science research activity with resultant artwork – University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University | UK
Workshop | The Echo Of Narcissus – Chain Reaction! | University of Kent | UK
Workshop | The Three Worlds Collide: Arts Science and Business | Canterbury College | UK
Residency | BioArt | School of Visual Arts | New York | USA
Group Exhibition | The NATlab | School of Visual Arts | New York | USA
The following organisations have supported my work: