Material Art Science Environment Research – Bath Spa University
Archived: 2026-04-23 17:13
Material Art Science Environment Research – Bath Spa University
Skip to main content
Material : Art : Science : Environment : Research
The Material : Art : Science : Environment : Research (MASER) group is a forum that addresses questions around overlapping developments in the Arts and Sciences, historically and today.
Bringing together artists, scientists, curators and researchers from across Bath Spa University and beyond, including from Royal Holloway University, Polar Aspect, Bristol Experimental Expanded Film (BEEF), and University of Brighton, as well as independent practitioners, the group discusses ideas which straddle the disciplines of Art and Science.
They consider how we might understand methods of working in both fields and how and where these overlapping approaches might fit into our lives. Where do Art and Science cross over and influence each other and us? How does our imagination help us to understand and describe the world around us?
Gallery of work by group members
Slideshow images: Solveig Settemsdal - still from
OK Swallow Great
; Emma Critchley - still from
Witness
; Ben Parry and Lia Mazzari -
Billboard with fuse wire
; Emma Stibbon -
Broken Terrain
; Greer Crawley -
Trenches
; Kathy Hinde -
Tipping Point
; Lydia Halcrow -
Ghost Nets - Strandline
; Mariele Neudecker -
The Improbable Always Happens Sometimes (Sediment);
Matt Law -
Mind mapping for climate change theatre;
Melissa Mahon
- The Shipwrecks;
Penny Hay
- Forest Drawing Machine;
Rosie Snell
- Ice Floe;
Siobhan McDonald
- Crystalline Highlanes;
Stephen Vaughan
- Zassho Cascadia;
Tamsin Relly
- Lake II;
Anthony Speca -
Norwich Model Arctic Council 4;
Ariane Koek -
Sky Turning
Members from Bath Spa
Penny
Hay
Professor of Imagination
Matthew
Law
Senior Lecturer in Environmental Change and Sustainability
Stephen
Vaughan
Ben
Parry
Mariele
Neudecker
Rosemary
Snell
Melissa
Mahon
PhD in Fine Art
Members from other institutions
polaraspect.com
chasingpolaris.com
arianekoek.com
Emma Critchley is an artist who uses a combination of photography, film, sound and installation to continually explore the human relationship with the underwater environment as a political, philosophical and environmental space. She is Royal College of Art alumni and has developed works funded by organisations including Arts Council England, British Council, Singapore International Foundation and the European Regional Development Fund. Her work has been shown extensively in galleries and institutions nationally and internationally.
Recent works, residencies and exhibitions include:
Common Heritage (2019, funded by Jerwood Charitable Foundation), a film about the imminent threat of deep-sea mining for rare earth minerals for which Emma worked with deep-sea ecology scientists at the National Oceanography Centre and the University of Plymouth.
The Space Below (2020), a large-scale public soundscape about underwater acoustic pollution, created in collaboration with artist Lee Berwick and a number of scientific organisations including the British Antarctic Survey and the Californian Ocean Alliance. Originally installed in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel with the National Maritime Museum.
Earth Water Sky Residency winner 2019, (with Science Gallery Venice in collaboration with the Ice Memory Project). The resulting 2-screen film installation Witness will launch in the Italian Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021 and be exhibited with The Science Gallery Venice in late Summer 2021.
emmacritchley.com
info@emmacritchley.com
@critchley_emma
(Instagram)
@EmmaJCritchley
(Twitter)
Stibbon’s research has led her to undertake residencies including Artist Placement in Antarctica, organised by the Scott Polar Research Institute; the Arctic Circle.org expedition to Svalbard in the High Arctic; Artist in Residence at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park; and to document receding glaciers in Ecuador with Project Pressure.
Stibbon has recently exhibited her work at Cristea Roberts Gallery, London; Galerie Bastian, Berlin; the New Art gallery, Walsall; Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne; The Polar Museum, Cambridge; the Royal Academy, London; York Museum and Art Gallery; and Abbot Hall Art gallery, Kendal. Her work is held in private and public collections including the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne; New Art Gallery, Walsall; Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery; Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth; and the V&A, London.
Emma Stibbon was born in 1962 in Münster, Germany and lives and works in Bristol, UK. She studied a Fine Art BA at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Research Fine Art MA at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She is Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton, and was elected Royal Academician in 2013.
@lydiahalcrow
Settemsdal is a multi-disciplinary artist working across mediums including sculpture, video, photography, drawing and sound. She was born in Norway, did her art foundation at Strykejernet Art School in Oslo and has been based in the UK since 2007. She completed a BA in Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art in 2010 and an MFA in Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art in 2018. She won the Jerwood Drawing Price for her video work Singularity in 2016, the first video to win the award.
She is currently based in Hackney, London. Selected exhibitions include ZEITGEBER, Gossamer Fog, 2020; Pool, Solo Residency exhibition at Unit 1 Gallery, 2019; ENTANGLE, Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden 2018; Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria 2017; Sonica at CCA, Glasgow 2017; Imagine, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Australia 2017; Drawing Biennial at Drawing Room, London.
solveig@settemsdal.com
settemsdal.com
Tamsin Relly’s multi-disciplinary practice includes painting, printmaking and photography. South Africa born, she moved to London in 2009 and received her MA in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School in 2011.
Relly’s work reflects on the increasingly disrupted environmental conditions of a shifting global climate, and considers the erasure and construction of wilderness, whether for industry or leisure. Recent projects explore the preservation of arboreal and botanical environments through conservation, urban parks, and memory – be it personal, collective or held within the land.
Drawing on both found media imagery and first-hand observations, Relly works with the fluid and unpredictable qualities of her materials and processes to present impressions of natural and urban spaces in states of uncertainty or impermanence. As part of her research, she has visited and studied diverse locations such as Svalbard in the Arctic Circle, The Eden Project in Cornwall, and the fabricated oasis of the Las Vegas Strip.
Relly’s work has been exhibited and collected widely in the UK and internationally, appearing in group exhibitions at The Royal Academy of Arts, The National Maritime Museum and Oliver Projects in London, SMITH in Cape Town and Galerie Rue Visconti, Paris. Her work is held in collections such as Spier and Ellerman House in South Africa, and Hogan Lovells, Dentons and the National Maritime Museum in London. She has had solo exhibitions hosted by The House of St Barnabas, The Place Downstairs and Brocket Gallery in London. Artist residencies include Arteles, Finland (2016), RE·THINK: Environment, National Maritime Museum, London (2015), Pocantico, Rockefeller Brother Fund, New York (2015), and The Arctic Circle, Svalbard (2014).
Get in touch
If you are interested in getting involved with Material : Art : Science : Environment : Research (MASER), or have questions, please get in touch with Professor Mariele Neudecker (
m.neudecker@bathspa.ac.uk
).
Masthead image credit: Mariele Neudecker -
The Improable Always Happens Sometimes (Sediment)
You might also be interested in
Art Research Centre
Postgraduate Research Art
Material : Making
Space Place Practice Network
Skip to main content
Material : Art : Science : Environment : Research
The Material : Art : Science : Environment : Research (MASER) group is a forum that addresses questions around overlapping developments in the Arts and Sciences, historically and today.
Bringing together artists, scientists, curators and researchers from across Bath Spa University and beyond, including from Royal Holloway University, Polar Aspect, Bristol Experimental Expanded Film (BEEF), and University of Brighton, as well as independent practitioners, the group discusses ideas which straddle the disciplines of Art and Science.
They consider how we might understand methods of working in both fields and how and where these overlapping approaches might fit into our lives. Where do Art and Science cross over and influence each other and us? How does our imagination help us to understand and describe the world around us?
Gallery of work by group members
Slideshow images: Solveig Settemsdal - still from
OK Swallow Great
; Emma Critchley - still from
Witness
; Ben Parry and Lia Mazzari -
Billboard with fuse wire
; Emma Stibbon -
Broken Terrain
; Greer Crawley -
Trenches
; Kathy Hinde -
Tipping Point
; Lydia Halcrow -
Ghost Nets - Strandline
; Mariele Neudecker -
The Improbable Always Happens Sometimes (Sediment);
Matt Law -
Mind mapping for climate change theatre;
Melissa Mahon
- The Shipwrecks;
Penny Hay
- Forest Drawing Machine;
Rosie Snell
- Ice Floe;
Siobhan McDonald
- Crystalline Highlanes;
Stephen Vaughan
- Zassho Cascadia;
Tamsin Relly
- Lake II;
Anthony Speca -
Norwich Model Arctic Council 4;
Ariane Koek -
Sky Turning
Members from Bath Spa
Penny
Hay
Professor of Imagination
Matthew
Law
Senior Lecturer in Environmental Change and Sustainability
Stephen
Vaughan
Ben
Parry
Mariele
Neudecker
Rosemary
Snell
Melissa
Mahon
PhD in Fine Art
Members from other institutions
polaraspect.com
chasingpolaris.com
arianekoek.com
Emma Critchley is an artist who uses a combination of photography, film, sound and installation to continually explore the human relationship with the underwater environment as a political, philosophical and environmental space. She is Royal College of Art alumni and has developed works funded by organisations including Arts Council England, British Council, Singapore International Foundation and the European Regional Development Fund. Her work has been shown extensively in galleries and institutions nationally and internationally.
Recent works, residencies and exhibitions include:
Common Heritage (2019, funded by Jerwood Charitable Foundation), a film about the imminent threat of deep-sea mining for rare earth minerals for which Emma worked with deep-sea ecology scientists at the National Oceanography Centre and the University of Plymouth.
The Space Below (2020), a large-scale public soundscape about underwater acoustic pollution, created in collaboration with artist Lee Berwick and a number of scientific organisations including the British Antarctic Survey and the Californian Ocean Alliance. Originally installed in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel with the National Maritime Museum.
Earth Water Sky Residency winner 2019, (with Science Gallery Venice in collaboration with the Ice Memory Project). The resulting 2-screen film installation Witness will launch in the Italian Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021 and be exhibited with The Science Gallery Venice in late Summer 2021.
emmacritchley.com
info@emmacritchley.com
@critchley_emma
(Instagram)
@EmmaJCritchley
(Twitter)
Stibbon’s research has led her to undertake residencies including Artist Placement in Antarctica, organised by the Scott Polar Research Institute; the Arctic Circle.org expedition to Svalbard in the High Arctic; Artist in Residence at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park; and to document receding glaciers in Ecuador with Project Pressure.
Stibbon has recently exhibited her work at Cristea Roberts Gallery, London; Galerie Bastian, Berlin; the New Art gallery, Walsall; Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne; The Polar Museum, Cambridge; the Royal Academy, London; York Museum and Art Gallery; and Abbot Hall Art gallery, Kendal. Her work is held in private and public collections including the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne; New Art Gallery, Walsall; Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery; Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth; and the V&A, London.
Emma Stibbon was born in 1962 in Münster, Germany and lives and works in Bristol, UK. She studied a Fine Art BA at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Research Fine Art MA at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She is Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton, and was elected Royal Academician in 2013.
@lydiahalcrow
Settemsdal is a multi-disciplinary artist working across mediums including sculpture, video, photography, drawing and sound. She was born in Norway, did her art foundation at Strykejernet Art School in Oslo and has been based in the UK since 2007. She completed a BA in Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art in 2010 and an MFA in Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art in 2018. She won the Jerwood Drawing Price for her video work Singularity in 2016, the first video to win the award.
She is currently based in Hackney, London. Selected exhibitions include ZEITGEBER, Gossamer Fog, 2020; Pool, Solo Residency exhibition at Unit 1 Gallery, 2019; ENTANGLE, Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden 2018; Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria 2017; Sonica at CCA, Glasgow 2017; Imagine, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Australia 2017; Drawing Biennial at Drawing Room, London.
solveig@settemsdal.com
settemsdal.com
Tamsin Relly’s multi-disciplinary practice includes painting, printmaking and photography. South Africa born, she moved to London in 2009 and received her MA in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School in 2011.
Relly’s work reflects on the increasingly disrupted environmental conditions of a shifting global climate, and considers the erasure and construction of wilderness, whether for industry or leisure. Recent projects explore the preservation of arboreal and botanical environments through conservation, urban parks, and memory – be it personal, collective or held within the land.
Drawing on both found media imagery and first-hand observations, Relly works with the fluid and unpredictable qualities of her materials and processes to present impressions of natural and urban spaces in states of uncertainty or impermanence. As part of her research, she has visited and studied diverse locations such as Svalbard in the Arctic Circle, The Eden Project in Cornwall, and the fabricated oasis of the Las Vegas Strip.
Relly’s work has been exhibited and collected widely in the UK and internationally, appearing in group exhibitions at The Royal Academy of Arts, The National Maritime Museum and Oliver Projects in London, SMITH in Cape Town and Galerie Rue Visconti, Paris. Her work is held in collections such as Spier and Ellerman House in South Africa, and Hogan Lovells, Dentons and the National Maritime Museum in London. She has had solo exhibitions hosted by The House of St Barnabas, The Place Downstairs and Brocket Gallery in London. Artist residencies include Arteles, Finland (2016), RE·THINK: Environment, National Maritime Museum, London (2015), Pocantico, Rockefeller Brother Fund, New York (2015), and The Arctic Circle, Svalbard (2014).
Get in touch
If you are interested in getting involved with Material : Art : Science : Environment : Research (MASER), or have questions, please get in touch with Professor Mariele Neudecker (
m.neudecker@bathspa.ac.uk
).
Masthead image credit: Mariele Neudecker -
The Improable Always Happens Sometimes (Sediment)
You might also be interested in
Art Research Centre
Postgraduate Research Art
Material : Making
Space Place Practice Network