Fabian Wadsworth a poet, mixed media artist and volcanologist from the UK and Núria Altimir, a data visualisation artist and biogeoscientist from Spain and Finland have been selected for a residency at the next EGU General Assembly. The Artist in Residence programme offers scientist-artists an opportunity to engage with scientific research in a dynamic setting and be inspired by the many new discoveries being presented at the conference, which will take place in Vienna, Austria from 3 – 8 May 2026.

Núria Altimir (LinkedIn profile) is a data scientist, data portrait artist and biogeoscientist, with experience spanning atmosphere-biosphere exchange mechanisms, flux-based ecological and physiological measurements, and functional ecology. At the General Assembly she will be creating several large scale data-based artworks examining how networks and uncertainty in science can be represented in real time. "I have attended EGU many times as a scientist, and after shifting my career into information design I’ve been eager to experience the conference again from a new angle. This Artist in Residence role feels like a perfect fusion of two worlds I know deeply, and I am genuinely excited to see how they meet on the conference floor," said Núria. "For this residency, I plan to set up backgrounds for participatory data art. The pieces will explore networks, uncertainty, and design awareness. Participants become the data points themselves, so I warmly invite everyone to stop by, leave their mark, and help shape an evolving collective artwork. You are also welcome to join my workshop, where I will share practical tips on how to to 'beautify' your science. Whether at the stand or in the corridors, I’m always happy to exchange ideas about the intersections of art, information design, and science. Feel free to say hello anytime."

Fabian Wadsworth (@the_anonymous_few) is a mixed media artist, poet and volcanologist, working on the physics of volcanic eruptions, predictive modelling and the material science of sintering and ceramic production. At the General Assembly he will be working with tessellated images, created in partnership with the meeting attendees, to encourage discussions about mental health in the geosciences. The final product will be a large scale tessellated piece representing both the individual and collective experiences of scientists and researchers at the meeting. “I applied to be an EGU Artist in Residence because I believe this flagship conference is the perfect place to explore mental health through art, collectively and constructively. Geoscientists are comfortable thinking in terms of scale, accumulation, thresholds, and complex systems, and those same concepts provide a useful language for reflecting on how mental health challenges arise and persist within large scientific communities," Fabian told us. "My work offers a way of engaging with these issues that is quiet, non-confessional, and collaborative; using repetition, pattern, and counting rather than narrative or spectacle. By situating the project within a major geoscience conference, I hope to create a space for reflection that feels native to the discipline —grounded in shared ways of thinking— while still addressing a topic that often remains difficult to articulate. I am a volcanologist first and foremost. My training, daily practice, and intellectual home are in the geosciences; in thinking about complex media, emergent behaviour, and how large-scale patterns arise from many simple interactions. The artwork I make comes directly out of that way of seeing the world. I did not begin making art in parallel with my scientific career, nor as a departure from it. I began making art because, like many scientists, I encountered mental health challenges that I did not have a ready technical language for, either in myself or in the communities I work within. The art grew as a response to that need: a way of staying with difficult realities without dramatising them, and of thinking collectively rather than individually. Over the course of EGU26 I will be making artworks that highlight how we are individuals within a community of scientists, and that while collectively we are strong and cohesive, individually, we may be struggling, often feeling anonymous in that struggle. I will be inviting you to participate by contributing directly to a large-format artwork that will be created through the week – please come along! Or just come and have a reflective conversation!"

EGU General Assembly participants will be able to see images of the artwork produced by artists via social media (using the hashtag #EGUart), on the EGU GeoLog blog and live at the conference centre. Find out more about the last few years’ Artists in and (not) in Residence by visiting our Youtube playlist and EGU’s GeoLog blogs.

• EGU26 General Assembly website