Claps at 8 - Creative Reactions, Pint of Science

Art is a powerful tool that can make scientific data more accessible on an emotional and human level.

Creative Reactions is the science-meets-arts branch of Pint of Science, encouraging collaboration between artists and scientists to showcase research creatively. This massive festival has taken part in over 400 cities across 24 countries.

Image: Researcher (Nerea Ferrando) from the University of Reading identifying soil mesofauna (Zhang, Y., 2019. [photograph]).

In April 2020, hit with the news that Pint of Science was to be delayed until at least September. Nerea Ferrando and Chloe Brimicombe, two Environmental Science PhD students from the University of Reading came up with a plan to run a Twitter Creative Reactions event during the month of May.

Part of the exhibition showcases some of the works from talented researchers and artists for the two themes of Covid-19 and Climate Change; topics which have a large global impact.

Nerea Ferrando's work, 'Claps at 8' is dedicated to healthcare workers and all those who were out there making a difference during the most challenging times of the Covid-19 pandemic. It depicts the most important appointment of the day in Spain where everyone joined forces to clap for carers at 8pm.