Join us for a site visit to the in progress UCL Multi Lab site and view the developing artwork commission followed by an in conversation with the Architectural Practice Turner Works, Landscape Designer Studio gb, Artist Emma Smith and Community Partner’s - the conversation will be chair by Sam Wilkinson, UCL Director of Public Art & Director of Cultural and Community Engagement (UCL East campus).
What are the opportunities and challenges faced with the temporary use of a site? How can meaningful embedded artist led engagement happen with local communities when dealing with the temporal nature of meanwhile use, and how do we ensure a platform for their voice?
UCL's East Campus is currently implementing a new meanwhile use of a site which, over the next 7.5 years, will exist as the UCL Multi Lab. This temporary site will host the Institute of Material Discovery, The Faculty of Life Sciences and the People and Nature Lab. Research at the site will address the science and biology of life, from novel discoveries to the delivery of real-world solutions, from molecules and cells to populations and ecosystems.
UCL Multi Lab was designed by Turner Works, specialists in innovative meanwhile solutions; the perimeter planting was designed by studiogb, who have taken into consideration the legacy planting of London 2012 and community impact through urban planting; and a newly commissioned artwork has been made in response to the research aims of the site. Democratising the research language and its lines of enquiry, not only acting as a window into UCL Multi Lab activity, but asking the public to be active participants in the research dialogue.
