Art and science combine at the microscopic level in this fascinating, wide-ranging conversation between biologist Merlin Sheldrake, author of international best selling book Entangled Life, and visual artist and Emeritus Professor of Art, Design & Science at Central Saint Martins, Rob Kesseler. 

About the speakers:

Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist, writer, and speaker with a background in plant sciences, microbiology, ecology, and the history and philosophy of science. He received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. He is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, works with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation.

His book, Entangled Life, is a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and won the Royal Society Book Prize and the Wainwright Prize. Merlin is the presenter of Fungi: Web of Life, a giant screen documentary narrated by Björk.

Merlin's research ranges from fungal biology, to the history of Amazonian ethnobotany, to the relationship between sound and form in resonant systems. A keen brewer and fermenter, he is fascinated by the relationships that arise between humans and more-than-human organisms.

Rob Kesseler is an award-winning visual artist, Emeritus Professor of Art, Design & Science at Central Saint Martins, Fellow of the Linnean Society and Ambassador for Royal Microscopical Society. For the past twenty-five years he has worked extensively with botanical scientists and molecular biologists around the world to explore the living world at a microscopic level. Using a range of complex microscopy processes he creates multi-frame composite images of plant organs to create intense large format photographs that captivate the eye and extend the traditions of botanical art into a contemporary field. Collaborators include The Jodrell Laboratory Kew, The John Innes Centre, Norwich, and the Max Planck Institute, Germany.