Pedagogy 2025
Abstract
para-lab is a Manchester-based organisation dedicated to exploring innovative methods of collaboration between scientists and artists. Operating within the sphere of para-academia, para-lab creates alternative learning environments that circumvent the short-term, outcome-driven imperatives of both academia and the art world. para-lab uses collaboration as an educational tool, fostering growth and knowledge-production beyond the limitations of traditional higher education. The organisation follows an annual cycle of activities, including idea-generation sessions, lectures, discussion groups, exhibitions, and symposia. Departing from conventional models where artists respond to scientific research in predefined residencies, para-lab nurtures open-ended collaboration from the inception of an idea. This longitudinal approach embodies the ethos of “slow science” as advocated by Science and Technology Studies scholar Isabelle Stengers, shifting away from rapid, outcome-driven research towards a more reflective and ethical knowledge production where artists and fellow scientists act as vital cultural negotiators. With para-lab’s emphasis on process, projects often resist quantifiable outcomes, resulting instead in intangible, yet still profound, shifts in understanding and practice. Recognising the challenge of articulating these impacts, para-lab has begun using artistic practice-based research methods as a tool for analysis. They curate outdoor excursions, drawing on emerging research into “wild-awe” as a catalyst for learning and cooperation, as well as producing films and publications.
Annie Carpenter is an artist and academic based in the South Pennines. Her studio practice employs amateur labour in a haptic-driven pursuit of scientific knowledge, often in the form of mechanical sculptures. She is a Lecturer in Fine Art at Leeds Beckett University and is studying towards a practice-based PhD at Northumbria Historically. Annie is the founder and co-director of ‘para-lab’, alongside Andrew Wilson, an organisation facilitating experimental methods of collaboration between artists and scientists, running in parallel to academic institutions.
Andrew Wilson