Explore the opportunities and challenges when we bring the worlds of science and art together with our panel of researchers, artists and scientists, led by Filmmaker and Science Communicator, Gianna Savoie. Afterwards, join us for a late night opening of the ArtScience Exhibition to see these ideas in action.

Pay what you can afford: recommended $15, but choose your own price!

Introducing our panel:

Gianna Savoie

Dr. Gianna Savoie is an award-winning documentary producer/writer, science communicator, and National Geographic Explorer with two decades of experience in Science and Natural History filmmaking and a knack for powerful storytelling that has led her to sink her teeth into some of the most critical conservation issues on the planet. Her Emmy-nominated work has been featured on National Geographic, PBS, NATURE, Discovery, and the BBC, as well as in theatrical documentaries and in print and web publications. 

 In 2015, Gianna founded the Ocean Media Institute, a non-profit global media collective that engages the public in ocean science and conservation through innovative, inclusive media and artistic approaches to ocean literacy. And in her quest to “pay it forward” and inspire the next generation of environmental storytellers, she teaches and mentors emerging filmmakers and science communicators.

Sione Faletau

Sione Faletau (b. 1991) is an interdisciplinary artist of Tongan descent from the villages of Taunga (Vava‘u) and Lakepa (Tongatapu), based in Ōtara, South Auckland. His practice spans soundscape, video, projection, performance, drawing, sculpture, and installation, grounded in Tongan concepts such as fonua (land, people, womb) and ongo (sound, feeling).

Faletau holds a Doctor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, where his research explored Tongan masculinity from an Indigenous perspective through Talanoa methodology. His work translates sound into kupesi, transforming audio waveforms into visual pattern systems. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally, with a practice centred on cultural identity and environmental relationships.

Pam MacKinlay

Pam McKinlay (Tangata Tiriti) is an artist-curator and convenor of the Art+Science Project in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Her practice explores relationships between people, place and the more-than-human world in shaping collective memory. Working across art, science and community contexts, she develops place-based projects that explore climate change and biodiversity, connecting curiosity, knowledge, care  and collective action. 

 Specifically this month  -- I'm currently in the final stages of the Art+Science Project - theme for 2026 is "time" which spun out of the last project "Memory and Mind" - so I'm thinking about genealogies of space-time as a way of thinking across scales that connect cosmic, ecological and our human histories. Also the latest wave of colonisation happening on our galactic frontier.

Elle Gilchrist

Elle Gilchrist is completing a PhD at Kā Rakahau o te Ao Tūroa Centre for Sustainability Research at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka University of Otago exploring social arts practice and community engagement in climate change adaptation. Elle's current research focuses on sense of agency and understanding experiences of climate change. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Marine Biology and a Master's in Human Ecology. Her most recent projects involved understanding human-ocean relationships in a fishing town in the Yucatán and arts-based coastal heritage research on Rakiura Stewart Island. 

Aidan Taira Geraghty

More to come