What happens when scientists and artists collaborate? How can art and science enrich each other, and what challenges arise? This book addresses these questions around a central focus: what makes art-science interactions meaningful?

Drawing on a series of cases, this book combines perspectives from psychology, philosophy, art history, artistic practice, anthropology, exhibition design, and communication sciences. It explores how art-science collaborations unfold across diverse contexts, from laboratories to public spaces, artists’ studios, museums, as well as (re)imagined realities. Combining lived experience with theoretical and empirical reflection, the chapters discuss the conditions under which collaborations move beyond superficial or instrumental engagement and become meaningful.

The insights in this book emerge from the PALETTES project at KU Leuven. The project’s inter- and transdisciplinary research environment functioned as a site of collaboration and reflection, enabling close observation and critical examination of art-science interactions in practice.

The book supports epistemic diversity, whereby both art and science are acknowledged as valuable, yet distinct ways of knowing and engaging with the world. It also offers guidance for initiating, sustaining, and reimagining meaningful interactions within and beyond academia.

Priscilla Van Even is an inter- and transdisciplinary researcher affiliated with the PALETTES project. Her work examines how artistic and scientific knowledge is created, interpreted, mediated, and shared, and how discursive, artistic, and digital practices shape knowledge in scientific, societal, and cultural contexts. By creating space for epistemic diversity within the scientific realm, she supports more reflective and participatory approaches to knowledge creation and translation.

Bieke Zaman is a co–principal investigator of the PALETTES project and a professor of Human-Computer Interaction and Communication Sciences at KU Leuven, where she leads research at the intersection of digital technology and society. Her work focuses on the design and governance of digital media, and the way they shape people’s lives, including ethical and inclusive dimensions of emerging technologies. With an interest in participatory and cross-disciplinary methodologies, she currently looks at art–science interactions, combining conceptual, empirical, and design-oriented perspectives.