Ackroyd & Harvey Art Exhibition

Nicholas Hare Architects have been collaborating with award-winning and internationally acclaimed artists Ackroyd and Harvey on the Public Art projects for the David Attenborough Building. Two large-scale permanent works by the artists - integral with the building wall surfaces and composed of intensively layered slate have been installed at the Corn Exchange and Pembroke Street entrances to the building where they help guide visitors to the Museum of Zoology and the Cambridge Conservation Initiative.

These two permanent works are preceded by an exhibition celebrating the pioneering partnership between the University of Cambridge and the Cambridge Conservation Initiative opened on 9 March and is located in the space that is shortly to become the building's public café.

This is the first showing of work by the Ackroyd and Harvey in Cambridge and includes a living artwork, a twin-screen film projection, a large-scale wall text and an existing sculptural work – a 6m long crystallised whale skeleton. The artwork addresses the interdependence between the partners who inhabit the David Attenborough Building and focuses on the links between fundamental biology, the Museum of Zoology’s collections and global conservation.

The exhibition takes place during the University of Cambridge Science Festival (7-20 March), which also features talks by the artists and family events in the David Attenborough Building.