Exhibition dates:

14 - 16  April 2021, Algae-UK Festival of Algae (online)

21 June - Aug 2021, Summer Lights Festival, Crossrail Place Roof Garden, Canary Wharf, London, UK

29 April - 8 May 2022, Gentse Floraliën, (Royal Society for Agriculture and Botany npo) Belgium

Jul 2022, Edinburgh Science Festival, Scotland, UK, TBC

1-30th Sep 2022, Paleis Het Loo Royal Palace, Apeldoorn, Netherlands

A new public exhibition on tour by international x-ray artist Hugh Turvey, exposing the form and function of nature.

Hugh Turvey, Artist in Residence of the British Institute of Radiology, was commissioned to prepare 10 pieces of X-ray art entitled “Hidden Garden”, for the Canary Wharf Group to be displayed in the Foster & Partners Crossrail Place Roof Garden this year.  While the original plans necessarily had to evolve, the exhibition will be touring a number of sites where it will be showcased over 2021, some of which are listed below.


About the Exhibit
Hidden Garden is an aesthetic scientific representation of flora and algae, using the medium of x-ray imaging to highlight the hidden architectural structures within the subjects. Each image covers a theme including sustainability, habitat, pollinators and medicinal, each with a caption explaining the science, research or statistics behind the image.

This exhibition has been created during the pandemic. COVID-19 has caused a global health crisis and forced economies to shut down in the face of strict quarantine measures. However, the outbreak has had some unexpected positive impacts on Earth’s environment as nations restrict the movement of people and perhaps now is the time to re-balance our relationship with nature.

Hugh Turvey, x-ray Artist, London
Aesthetic reinvention of x-ray that bridges the gap between art/science, graphic design and pure photography. His work is exhibited globally. Clients include private collectors, art agents, galleries and corporations. Other agency collaborations include marketing/advertising, design/publishing, TV/film, architectural/interior design.
 
The main supporting partner is Fauna & Flora International but Algae-UK and Cambridge Conservation Initiative are also supporting this exhibition.

 
 

Turvey likens the reveal of making an x-ray image to the moments spent in a photographic darkroom: “You’ve taken images, and you don’t really know what they’re going to be like from a negative, (especially when they are 35mm), you don’t really get the impact of them until you’ve enlarged them onto a big piece of paper and then it’s revealed to you”.

In that moment, says Turvey, “you actually see the real image, because until that moment it was just something that you imagined; you pictured it, you composed it, you took a photograph, but until it’s physically there its fixed and you can see it, there’s a transient point where anything could happen.”

There’s a famous thought experiment by American philosopher Thomas Nagel that asked the question, “What is it like to be a bat?”. It asks the reader to imagine the subjective experiences of the world for a human and a bat, whose primary sensory experience is sonar. Both perceptual experiences, though feeding back the same source, are completely different. The world according to a bat is something only humans can attempt to imagine. Through his x-ray work Turvey is not necessarily revealing an unseen world, but offering a new way of seeing what has been before us all along.

If I can make more people see the world through x-ray, which is what I’m trying to do, I would hope that they would marvel at the things that I see.This fascination began for Turvey while he was working as an assistant to Mankowitz. A small job for an unsigned band came in which required an image of a broken bone, so Turvey headed off to the Royal Free Hospital in London on a mission. At that time radiographers where shooting on film and would create multiple exposures to account for errors, which would then be put into a special bin so that their silver could be reclaimed. Turvey met the senior radiographer, who was head of imaging, who pointed to the bin and let him see if there was anything in there that suited his requirements.

“That was fabulous,” says Turvey, “because there were just the most amazing images and all I could see was just aesthetic - it was that love of that size and impact of film that completely won me over.” He went on to work on several experimental projects with the radiographer, including one that explored chicken’s eggs at various stages of gestation. “At that point I started exploring other options and accessing other machinery that could do this, and what industries there are that use radiation as a light source to inspect things. I began to the world around us in a completely different way. It is quite a revelatory moment.”

It amazed Turvey that radiographers, some of whom have worked in their field for decades, fail to see aesthetic value in their work, despite creating images as an occupation. For them, x-ray is just a work tool, but for Turvey the fields or art and science are completely intertwined. “Science bears birth to art so as science progresses, we move forward with our discoveries and our knowledge of the world around us,” he says this is what will drive new and different forms of art.

Turvey is excited about where these technological developments could lead, citing LIDAR technology, which can look at places like Egypt to discover previously unknown structures under the sand that could not have been seen before, as especially interesting. “As technology progresses, I will progress along with it and I will use different technologies,” says Turvey.

Infinite structures and patterns within nature fascinate Turvey the most, however. It’s here we find several powerful parallels between Turvey’s x-ray practice and the world of traditional photography. Nature photography has long-been tied with the development of the progression of the practice photography. Early cameras could only be used outside due to the amount of light required for exposure, resulting in a fashion for garden and nature photography in early adopters, for example. And the work of pioneering American landscape photographer Ansel Adams–who Turvey cites as one of his key inspirations–was crucial in the conservation movement in the States, bringing into sharp relief the awesomeness of America’s natural beauty and the need to preserve it.

Turvey too hopes that showing the “delicacy and fragility of nature” through his x-rays of flowers, for just one example, could play an important role in the compelling action in urgent climate crisis. He believes these images “could be a really powerful tool to motivate people to understand and consider their relationship with nature in the future and our position on our planet.” The photographer who sees the world in x-ray wants others to see what is so transparent to him.

Images: Hugh Turvey
Text: Laura Havlin

https://dita.com/

https://www.facebook.com/DITAeyewear/photos/a.309374748508/10156832157018509/

The Director General of INAEM , Amaya de Miguel @amaya.demiguel along with Francisco Lorenzo , director of the National Center for Musical Diffusion (CNDM), have presented the season 19/20 of this center at a press conference.
The National Center for Musical Diffusion (CNDM), a unit under the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music (INAEM), proposes for its tenth season an intense and extensive program that maintains its spirit of recovering and spreading our vast historical heritage and educated popular music such as flamenco and jazz, encourage current composition and attract new audiences towards classical music, or those less frequent genres, through the various activities organized independently or in collaboration with more than a hundred from national and international institutions.

A representation of musical styles in Xograms in collaboration with Gema P. Píriz - sadly COVID interrupted proceedings in 2020.

"El Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical (CNDM) cuenta con una plantilla de dieciséis personas, entre funcionarios y contratados. Las imágenes de la temporada 19/20 son obras originales del artista británico Hugh Turvey, cuyas radiografías coloreadas con los tonos de cada ciclo del CNDM transmiten la esencia de cada serie, del propio centro y de la música, la energía que no vemos pero que es el alma de la belleza y de nuestro intenso y extenso trabajo."

https://www.ritmo.es/…/el-cndm-presenta-su-temporada-1920-3…

http://www.culturaydeporte.gob.es/…/presentacion-temporada-…

Programme Pdf: http://www.auditorionacional.mcu.es/…/notici…/cndm-19_20.pdf

​"Lyst  has collaborated with British artist and photographer Hugh Turvey has X-rayed 7 of this year’s most hyped sneakers to reveal what lies beneath the seams. Turvey’s artwork is different to any kind of sneaker photography we’ve seen before, In the Behind the Seams: Sneakers, the internal structure of each sneaker is revealed, bringing to light the details that are often overlooked by consumers."

With more than 3 million shoppers searching for a pair of sneakers online every month, we decided to investigate what lies beneath some of the world’s most wanted styles. This year’s hottest sneakers feature space age construction, a mix of fashion and athletic elements, intricate logos, textured sole shapes and stand out silhouettes. From the $100 Nike Vapormax to the $1000 Louis Vuitton Archlight, what lies beneath the complex construction and fabrication of these much lusted-after shoes?

To find out we collaborated with British artist and photographer Hugh Turvey to x-ray some of this summer’s most hyped sneaker styles. Toeing the line between photography and radiology, Turvey’s images use x-ray technology to create what he calls Xograms, a fusion of visible light and x-ray imagery.

One of ten artists globally invited/commissioned by Google to create a watchface app for Android Wear devices – to help initiate interest in the Android Wear OS platform. 
Production in Los Angeles.

"An Android Wear™ watch has become a digital canvas for visual art. Evolving from the Xogram work of artist Hugh Turvey, Xogram is a unique watch face now available for Android wearables. It has been created in collaboration with B-Reel who has worked with Hugh on the creative approach and Android development. Starting today you can download these watch faces from Google Play, just like you do apps, to be used on your Android Wear device.
 
Hugh’s work exposes the world around us, literally and metaphorically. A selection of his nature images are illuminated through a kaleidoscopic lens whenever the watch face is activated. Conjuring movement that reveals new variations to each they reflect an ever-changing world of possibility.
 
You can choose between analogue and digital, 12- or 24-hour clock displays and can pick your favourite image or cycle them all throughout the day.
 
“This project has given me a new perspective on graphic expressions of time. We are all Chrononauts, travellers in time, and I like to think this app might encourage us to take time and stop, if just for a moment, to appreciate the infinite patterns within nature.”  Hugh Turvey.

wearos.google.com
play.google.com/xogram 

“The beauty of the app is its attention to detail. Almost every object has some unique
effect, like the way the car engine’s pistons turn when you rotate it in x-ray mode.”
Applegazette.com

“Curious children and tweens will get an entertaining glimpse into everyday objects in
this app, which operates on multiple levels.”
schoollibraryjournal.com

"My 6yr old is amazed by x-rays since he's seen his MRI of his brain. He really enjoyed
seeing the insides of so many everyday objects. Highly Highly recommended app :)"
welcometotheirworldapps

"one of the most fun and innovative interactive books I have seen for the iPad. I really
enjoyed this book, and so did the children I shared it with."
mobiletechreview.com

"One of those completely unnecessary apps that we still think we can’t live without"
Stuff Magazine UK
​
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Thesun.co.uk
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"This odyssey all started when I invited Hugh to be a part of my parlor game potluck league that I was 
starting and that ultimately went nowhere. 

Hugh emailed me back thinking I had I spammed him.  We kind of got caught up since we had first 
worked together on an art science exhibit for the Franklin institute in 2005.  

I had seen an AMAZING book called Marion Batallie, published by Roaring Brook Press.  It is a pop up 
book where every letter has a different pop-up mechanism.  

Later the same week I had a idea in while I was showering for a. Beautiful A-Z book of Hugh's x-ray 
photography called X is for X-Ray.  I figured he had A large  enough archive of images that he could just 
whip the thing together.  

So I emailed my idea to Hugh and he was excited to give it a try and asked me to help.  We started 
working on a print book.  Eventually Hugh would create about thirteen new images for our print book. 
My wife Maren was writing the text.  We showed the book to several publishers and the feedback was 
very inconsistent, some didn't like the rhymes while others didn't like the images.  

After several rounds of conflicting feedback I sent the book to my friend and great writer Paul Rosenthal. 
Paul not only had great feedback but provided some wonderful example rhymes.  Hugh, Maren and 
myself decide that Paul was the guy to write the text if he was interested. Luckily he was interested and 
did a great job of creating a wonderful series of rhymes that go perfectly with Hugh's images.

After about a year of chasing publishers the iPad came out.  I realized that this book really needed to an 
ebook.  I had seen samples of The Elements by Theo Grey and I thought our book needed similar 
production values.  So in my initial search for an E publisher I looked up The Elements and discovered 
that Theo and his good friend Max had started a new company called TouchPress.  I sent them an email 
about our book.  Literally about 45 minutes later I received an email back from them expressing interest 
in our book. Two weeks after that we had a verbal agreement to do an ebook together.  A year and a 
half later X is for X-ray hit the iTunes store."  Mike Levad Co-author

Principle Participants
Hugh Turvey Artist in Residence, The British Institute of Radiology 
Sasha Moore Senior Radiographer/Artist, YDH

Dr W.Saywell Consultant Radiologist, YDH
Dr R.Clarkson Consultant Radiologist, YDH

Caroline Barnes, Art Co-ordinator, YDH
Mrs T. Oldham, Spitalfields Music, London.

https://www.ahsw.org.uk/case-studies/inr-i-project-x-ray-department-yeovil-district-hospital/

​Mission
A key aim for these works was to demystify the process of taking x-ray images and explain to patients the science behind the process in workshops with the equipment. Staff and the public were involved in bringing interest objects and revealing their structure or content by using x-rays with a qualified radiographer. The children particularly enjoyed the workshop process, seeing science being brought alive and learning with their parents seemed a mutually beneficial and fun experience. 95% of participants from the workshops said they would be interested in using the Radiology equipment again and had enjoyed the opportunity.

From these sessions we were able to collect data from the groups about what they wanted in terms of information from leaflets and staff they may meet. It was good to collect this data on their concerns in order to develop effective communication, and to combat their fears as much as possible. It is important to create (wherever possible) positive experiences within the hospital environment to reduce stress for further visits if required.

The Day I Saw Your Heart (2011) - IMDb

​Production of x-ray imagery used thought the feature film produced by Vertigo Films titled: Et Soudain, Tout Le Monde Me Manque (shot in Paris during August 2010). The last x-ray exhibition scene was shot at GALERIE ANNE DE VILLEPOIX, 43, rue de Montmorency 75003 Paris. Line Producer: Farid Chaouche.
​
Réalisatrice: Jennifer Devoldere    Acteurs: Eli: Michel Blanc    Justine: Mélanie Laurent    Géraldine Nakache    Guillaume Gouix