Join Abi Palmer in conversation with mycologist Nathan Smith to celebrate Slugs: a Manifesto, a new publication by Palmer, published by Makina Books. They’ll be discussing slugs, fungi and slime — and how creating literature from these unusual specimens might change the world…

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Abi Palmer is an artist and writer. She uses film, text, sculpture and sensory intervention to explore sick bodies, viscous textures and ecological landscapes.

Works include the film series Abi Palmer Invents the Weather (Artangel, 2023); the book Sanatorium (Penned in the Margins, 2020); and interactive gambling arcade Crip Casino (exhibited at Tate Modern, Somerset House, Wellcome Collection and Collective Edinburgh).

Her copulating slug sculptures were selected for the Frieze Corridor Commission (2023). She is a Bloomberg New Contemporaries artist (2023); a recipient of Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Awards for Artists (2021) and Artangel’s Thinking Time award (2020). Sanatorium was shortlisted for the Barbellion Prize.

Dr Nathan Smith, FLS, is Senior Curator of Mycology, Bryology, and Lichenology at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales (AC-NMW). His research looks at how our understandings of fungi and fungal-like organisms have changed over time and how this has shaped and been shaped by those who study them and society. He’s deeply interested in the intersections of art and science and previously collaborated with Abi on a poetry workshop entitled: Exploring the Fungarium: Poetry, Form and Fungus

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Access information

This event will take place in the gallery which is on the ground floor.

The event is seated.

Chapter has level access and lifts throughout. There are wheelchair-accessible toilets on every floor.

The exhibition has seating in every room.

If you have cold, flu or covid symptoms we ask that you do not attend to protect our immune-comprised speaker and attendees.

Masks are not mandatory but are very welcome.

Please contact enquiries@chapter.org for additional access questions.

Online access

The conversation will be filmed and be available to watch online for free shortly after the event. The video will be captioned.

https://www.chapter.org/whats-on/abi-palmer-in-conversation-with-nathan-smith