Artist Bedwyr Williams, the Science Museum Group and Foreground invite you to create incredible stories from the history of science in a new art project based in Wiltshire.
About Science Fictions
Internationally acclaimed artist Bedwyr Williams is creating an artistic response to our construction of a new publicly accessible home for the Science Museum Group Collection at the National Collections Centre in Wiltshire.
We are looking for participants aged 18 or over with an interest in writing who wish to contribute to Bedwyr’s film and book project, called Science Fictions, which will respond to our collection and its new home.
The film is expected to premier at the National Collections Centre in 2024 when the centre will open for public tours, school and research visits.
PLEASE NOTE: This film contains different images in a rapid sequence that some people might find disorienting.
Bedwyr explains
“I think, as a child, I had an inkling that a collection like this existed, but I never thought I’d have the opportunity to explore such an enormous, amazing thing. It’s a collection that, for me, at least sends me on wild flights of fancy imagining the histories of these objects from the banal to the extraordinary and the whimsical to the heart-breaking. Driving across an airfield in the middle of nowhere and getting a glimpse behind the scenes of a collection like this, my first thought was I’d like to be sniffing around these objects with other people and their imaginations and memories.
My plan is to seek out a group of people that are as excited as me to use this huge collection as a mine for ideas. Together we’ll find objects that spur us to conjure new pieces of writing. Please join us if you’re interested in writing. You don’t have to be ‘a writer’. Your writing and our conversations will also help inspire the film I will be making as part of the project.”
Taking part in science fictions
You’ll need to be available to join five online writing workshops taking place on Saturdays between May to December 2021, and be able to travel to the National Collections Centre (once COVID-19 restrictions allow) later in 2021 for a visit and for occasional follow up events in 2022–2024.
As a participant you will have the opportunity to work with internationally renowned artist Bedwyr Williams and get behind the scenes access to the incredible Science Museum Group Collection and the National Collections Centre. Your words will be included in the limited-edition publication and film artwork created by Bedwyr Williams at the end of the project. You’ll also receive expert advice on your writing from writer and Royal College of Art tutor Sally O’Reilly and an honorarium of £100.
If you are successful, we’ll be in touch by the end of April. The writing sessions will start on a Saturday in May, also taking place in June, July, September and November. COVID-19 restrictions permitting, we also aim to host a session for participants at the National Collections Centre later in 2021.
Applications have now closed.
Enquiries
If you have any questions please email: art.commissions@sciencemuseum.ac.uk.
