Research Artist – Art@CMS CERN (2013 – 2014)

December 2013 – July 2014 – Alison Gill – To See a World

Alison Gill show new sculpture at the Large Hadron Collider, CERN

The exhibition includes catalogue with texts by Paul Carey-Kent, art critic and from CMS CERN, Ian Shipsey, who is also Professor of Experimental Physics at Oxford University.

Alison Gill – Research Artist with Art@CMS 2013, at the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment: CERN, Point 5, CMS, Cessy, France.

There will be artists talks during the exhibition at CERN sites in Geneva and France including:

11 December CERN library: Introduction by Ariane Koek, director and creator of Collide@CERN Arts Residency programme and International Arts Development – CERN, Geneva.

Alison Gill – Sculpture Stories and Invisible Things  How might the presence of an artist influence the experiment at CMS? And how does the LHC change the artist and the work they make? Over the last two decades, I have worked with a wide range of media to create both sculpture and drawing. The interdisciplinary approach that I have taken has often involved engagement and dialogues with scientists. Through my art, I explore the stories we tell to make sense of things that seem beyond our conscious grasp, taking familiar objects and materials and re-purposing, casting or altering the meaning. Underlying themes have included folklore, beliefs and methods used in the pursuit of transcendence. Knots, Klein bottles and Möbius strips have also been used for their topological, emotive and metaphysical associations. I try to scrutinize the world around me to find hidden meanings and use humor to provoke thought, elicit curiosity and wonder. I will examine the parallels between my work as an artist and that of the CMS scientist. I will also describe the challenges of making sculpture for CMS and how it has produced the conditions for a new body of work.