Art and Science Meet on the Seashore

An exhibition of artwork inspired by seaweed research will be opened at Aberystwyth Arts Centre at 6pm on 15 November 2025 by the Director of IBERS, Professor Iain Donnison.

The Ar Lan y Môr / On the Seashore exhibition celebrates a creative collaboration betweenAberystwyth Printmakers and Dr Jessica Adams, Senior Research Scientist at IBERS, and brings together more than forty contributors inspired by the coastal environment.

Dr Adams’ research explores the many uses of seaweed - from developing biodegradable plastic films made from seaweed compounds to investigating seaweed extracts as food ingredients and natural fertilisers. Her work also looks at enzymes that can break down harmful algal blooms.

“In addition to my fundamental research on advancing the uses and benefits of seaweed, I wanted people to be able to engage with my work in new and exciting ways,” said Dr Adams.

 “By joining forces with Aberystwyth Printmakers, I hope we have opened different ways of looking at the natural world around us, especially here on the beautiful west coast of Wales.”

Dr Adams is an active member and President-elect of the British Phycological Society, which brings together researchers interested in seaweed and algae. She is currently organising the Society’s 2026 annual meeting, to be held in Aberystwyth for the first time in its history.

The Ar Lan y Môr / On the Seashoreexhibition grew from conversations earlier this year with Aberystwyth Printmakers, who are based on Gogerddan campus and who suggested creating a collection of prints inspired by the local coastline to coincide with the conference.

It follows a similar collaboration between IBERS scientists and Aberystwyth Printmakers in 2023 when artwork was created using paper made from miscanthus, a biomass crop bred at IBERS which can capture carbon emissions from the atmosphere and help tackle climate change.

Dr Adams added: “Some of my fellow scientists at IBERS have created artworks with the Printmakers before and have joined in again for this collaboration. A group of printmakers and I met on Borth beach during the summer to take a closer look at what’s on our shore. It was a lovely afternoon, meeting with other academics, historians and artists. Many of the images have been printed on seaweed paper we made ourselves, building on techniques developed during the miscanthus project.”

A catalogue of works accompanies the exhibition, and the collaboration will also feature a public lecture by Professor Saul Purton, President of the British Phycological Society, at 4pm on Tuesday 6 January 2026 in Aberystwyth University’s Hugh Owen Building on Penglais Campus.

The Ar lan y Môr / On the Seashore exhibition can be viewed free of charge at Aberystwyth Arts Centre from 10 November 2025 to 8 February 2026.

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