How can thinking about past environments and deep time help us engage with current issues around climate, nature and biodiversity, and how can art interact with science to do so? Attempts to understand and conceptualize current environmental issues and human relations with the natural world require artistic engagement, as well as thinking on large and deep scales. This can include: thinking about the current climate crisis and biodiversity loss in the context of “deep time” and the larger history of the earth; debating the concept of the “Anthropocene,” and other ways of conceptualizing the relations between humans and large geological processes; trying to visualize and understand long-term and extensive changes in the environment; and reconstructing and imagining pre- and non-human pasts (and possibly futures), and the organisms living within them. In all these areas, the relations between art, science and imagination are crucial, and have the capacity to fundamentally change our understandings and attitudes, and enthuse and engage new audiences.

We will be holding a one-day brainstorming session and networking event in London in summer 2023 to build connections and share ideas, help shape future projects, and potentially develop other activities and collaborations on these lines.

In particular, this event will be aiming to involve and connect two groups of artists:

• Environmentally-engaged artists from conceptual or fine-arts backgrounds working in any media, especially if they are interested in issues around the climate crisis, the ‘Anthropocene,’ biodiversity, nature, animals, plants, geology, and/or time, who would like to reach new communities and audiences with their work, and would like to collaborate with scientists and humanities scholars with interests in these areas.

• Palaeoartists, or artists engaged in reconstructing extinct animals and prehistoric environments (also working in any media), especially those with interests in how palaeoart connects art and science, in promoting diversity within palaeoart (both in terms of media and within the palaeoart community), and how palaeontologically-inspired artwork can help us engage with issues around climate change, biodiversity loss, and human relations with the natural world.

More details, and names of participating artists, coming soon!

If you are an artist interested in taking part in the whole day event, then please enter in your details here by Friday 14 July: https://forms.office.com/e/C862sB6bnT

There will also be a more public component of the event in the afternoon, which is open for general attendance. If you would like to come to this, then enter your details in this form by Tuesday 18 July: https://forms.office.com/e/PAw9ZbTaPN