Artist Nina Vroemen is teaming up with Dr. Julian Self for the first FEELed Lab residency, where the pair will work on an interdisciplinary research and storytelling project.
A new research lab, tucked into the heart of Kelowna’s Woodhaven Nature Conservancy, will explore creative and scientific collaborations and push possibilities in both research areas.
The FEELed Lab , UBC Okanagan’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies’ newest research centre, is located at the Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre . This spring, it is piloting an Artist-and-Scientist-in-Residence program that brings artists and scientists together to collaborate in a shared space.
The FEELed Lab is a feminist environmental humanities field research facility that brings together students, researchers and community members interested in environmental and sustainability issues from feminist, queer, anti-colonial and disability justice perspectives. FEELed is a play on words for the field work undertaken in this research facility.
The residency will explore environmental and climate justice questions, and bring artists and scientists together to learn from each other and try new ideas. Participants will look at how creativity and scientific research can overlap, explains Astrida Neimanis, Director of the FEELed Lab and Canada Research Chair in Feminist Environmental Humanities at UBC Okanagan.
“I am often struck by the fact that for both artists and scientists, the work emerges from the same place: care for and curiosity about the world,” she says. “But in contemporary universities, art is often treated as the polar opposite of science.”
Artist Nina Vroemen and scientist Dr. Julian Self are teaming up for the first residency to work on an interdisciplinary research and storytelling project. Vroemen uses ceramics and glaze chemistry to explore the ecological and cultural stories that materials carry, while Self studies material science, observing how salts dissolve, crystallize and transform in different environments.
The collaboration is driven by a curiosity about how substances reveal themselves and interact over time, and how watching these processes can create both scientific knowledge and an ecological story, explains Vroemen.
“Together, we explore how artistic and scientific approaches illuminate material processes and the stories they carry, creating a space for dialogue across disciplines,” she adds.
Vroemen and Self will spend 10 days next month in the Okanagan conducting fieldwork and working with students and faculty at the FEELed Lab. They will use Woodhaven’s art studio for storyboarding, writing, research, and to compare their artistic and scientific processes.
“We are excited for this opportunity to share our passions and methods with each other, hopefully creating something more impactful than either could accomplish on our own,” says Neimanis. “In this time of climate catastrophe and political crisis, we need all hands on deck.”
The residency will culminate with an installation featuring printed images, sketches, notes, research papers, diagrams and evolving storyboards.
On March 9, between 2 and 4 pm, the public is invited to the Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre for an open studio and workshop to learn more about this residency.