The Art and Science of Linen at Northern Ireland Science Festival

Alex May joined Anna Dumitriu at PRONI in Belfast on 22 February 2018 for a Northern Ireland Science Festival talk built around The Art and Science of Linen. Presented after a screening of the video, the event opened out from the work itself into a wider conversation about linen production, bacterial processes, industrial history, and the ways scientific knowledge can be made public through art.

The discussion returned to the specific materials and processes behind the piece. Alongside Dumitriu’s focus on heritage craft, natural dyeing, and microbiology, May spoke about the filmed manual processes in Northern Ireland and about his editing approach, shaped by a background in VJing and technologically mediated moving image. That made the talk a strong example of how his practice uses digital form not just to document research, but to connect labour, place, and scientific process in ways that remain accessible to a broad audience.

Because The Art and Science of Linen is grounded in the ecology and history of linen production, Belfast was a particularly exact setting for the conversation. The event showed how the work can function both as an artwork and as a framework for discussing material culture, microbial life, and the cultural memory held inside industrial processes.