What is ArtCollab?

Art Collab is an interdisciplinary meeting place where researchers, artists and social stakeholders can collaborate on issues that require different perspectives and creative problem-solving. The platform will provide an arena where artistic and scientific methods can be cross-fertilised to contribute to a better understanding of complex societal challenges, such as climate, democracy, migration, social justice, technological development and existential issues. 

Artistic experiments allow artists and scientists to not only work together to conceptualise and question human impact on the world, but also to propose alternative futures. The focus is on methods that can raise awareness of contemporary challenges. The goal is for scientists and artists to learn from each other in an open dialogue and exploratory environment. The artistic method involves finding unexpected yet specific perspectives and approaches that create a novel and alternative understanding of social phenomena. It captures an experience of the world from a particular viewpoint that can open up a general understanding, but which can also offer resistance to models of thought, empower marginalised voices and validate lived experiences. A further perspective is to explore how technology and digitalisation are changing our understanding of what it means to be human. Here, artistic methods can shed light on how technology can both disrupt and enrich our relationship with the world around us, contributing to new insights into sustainable ways of living, while also exploring the performative potential of the new technologies.

The platform will act as a catalyst at Lund University. By bringing together people from different disciplines and sectors of society, it can inspire new thinking, increase societal engagement in science and art, and contribute to a better understanding of the challenges facing the world, as part of Lund University’s quest to be a world-class university that understands, explains and improves our world and the human condition.