In early 2020, the Science Museum Group, together with contemporary arts organisation Foreground, commissioned acclaimed artist Bedwyr Williams to creatively respond to the Science Museum Group Collection and its move into a new home (the Hawking Building) at the Science and Innovation Park in Wiltshire.
Bedwyr has since delved into our vast and varied collection over several years, producing a limited run book of short stories, Science Fictions, with contributions from writers around the country, and a film, The Wrong Thing.
The film has been published to mark the beginning of public tours, school and research visits to the Hawking Building in October 2024 and can be watched below.
We hope to exhibit the film in Wiltshire and beyond in the future. Please sign up to our Science and Innovation Park email newsletter for further updates on this.
Bedwyr explains
"As an artist responding to a vast, quiet, discombobulating collection, it would be wise to get specific, narrow down your options, focus, and make things bite-size. But when I first experienced this extraordinary sprawling collection, I was convinced I should try to pile it all on my plate somehow. Visiting the Science and Innovation Park feels like being taken into the nation's attic. Everything and anything you can think of is represented here in some way. At the end of a visit, I would sometimes be delirious from object fatigue.
Apart from marvelling at these objects' ingenuity and historical importance, I found it hard to stop speculating about their past lives as working objects and the lives of the people tied to them: the button pressers and calibrators, the doctors and patients, the drivers and passengers. A colossal invisible mute sister collection of memories and moments we can only imagine hanging in the air.
So, in a not very scientific way, I decided to imagine through these objects. The film, The Wrong Thing, is my flight of fancy through this universe of objects. Working with filmmakers Ewan Jones Morris and Casey Raymond, I wanted to bombard the viewer with objects to reflect how sprawling and random it is. It is one of the most extraordinary things I've ever spent time around. I also decided that this process should be shared somehow, so the book, Science Fictions, brings together the work of writers who responded to a call out to experience this incredible collection."
Art Commissions at the Science Museum Group
The Science Museum Group has previously commissioned and worked with a wide variety of contemporary artists including James Capper, Nikhil Chopra, Tacita Dean, Marlene Dumas, Antony Gormley, Thomas Heatherwick, Cornelia Parker, Marc Quinn, Conrad Shawcross and Yinka Shonibare.