MOUTHY heads to Latitude festival

As part of our MOUTHY: Into the orifice season the Science Gallery London team head to Latitude festival this weekend. Jen Wong, head of programming, writes...

Why? Because people's desire to celebrate, explore and discover new things at music festivals makes them the perfect place to creatively collide science and art. Music festivals occupy a central place in British culture, where people come together to get beyond the everyday, transgress, celebrate the arts in all their forms. These temporary cities are populated by the open and curious, people who are seeking to connect and participate, and encounter phenomena from the bizarre to the extraordinary.

The presence of science at music festivals serves to enrich and augment the opportunities people at festivals have to stimulate their curiosity. The success of Guerilla Science at Secret Garden Party, and Einstein’s Garden at Green Man shows how the festival context can successfully inspire people in surprising and playful ways – an encounter with a live chameleon, a human-sized lab rat or an intergalactic travel agent force you to consider how science applies to our lives in ways you might never otherwise have imagined.

At Latitude the Science Gallery London team will be collecting kiss stories, swapping oral bacteria and exploring the phenomenon of pain with comedians, microbiologists, dentists, and festival goers. Get involved! We’ll be in the Wellcome Trust Hub in the Faraway Forest on Friday 3.30pm and Saturday 12.30pm.

Photo credits: 1) Sheep at Latitude Festival, Tim Parkinson. 2) Microbiologist Joe Latimer at Guerilla Science’s Decontamination Chamber, Glastonbury Festival, Guerilla Science. 3) Comedians Rosie Wilby and Amie Taylor collect kiss stories, Richard Eaton.

July 12, 2016