Cambridge Festival 2026

Crafting Life: Responding Creatively to Reproduction and Women’s Health brought together scientists, artists, writers, and musicians to explore how creative practice can illuminate and respond to research on women’s health and reproduction.

The event unfolded in three parts, each inviting audiences to experience and reflect on the intersections between art and science.

Part 1: Art and Collaboration

Artists and scientists involved in the SciArt project shared insights from their collaborations exploring pregnancy, reproduction, and human development. Through discussion, they reflected on how these partnerships shaped their creative processes and the artworks featured in the accompanying exhibition (Part 3).

Part 2: Writing Reflections

A conversation and performance featuring Professor Amanda Sferruzzi-Perri (biologist, Fetal and Placental Physiology), Dr Frances Myatt (classicist, Department of Classics), and Lara Gisborne (singer/songwriter), accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Matt Kelly. Together they discussed their creative collaboration - drawing connections between Amanda’s research on pregnancy and women’s health, Frances’s study of childbirth in the ancient Roman world, and Lara’s songwriting inspired by these conversations. The session included live performances of songs emerging from their exchange.

Part 3: Exhibition:

The evening concluded with an exhibition of newly commissioned artworks and scientific images from the SciArt project. These works engage with themes of reproduction and reproductive health through diverse media - including textiles, sculpture, and painting. Using art as a doorway, this exhibits invited audience members to discover developmental biology in a way that goes beyond scientific jargon, creating a space for conversations between science and real life. The display will also feature other relating to reproduction and women’s health from Cambridge collections. 

Visitors were  invited to participate by contributing to a crowd-sourced playlist and creating their own drawings and artworks inspired by the themes of the event. Throughout the evening, illustrator and biologist Professor Alex Cagan produced live sketches capturing the discussions and performances, which were showcased as part of the event.

This event is organised by Cambridge Reproduction in collaboration with the Babraham Institute.

Image copyright: Emma Cammack (body painting) and Liz Webster (photograph).