Intertwining contexts — science and the mass street fes-tival. Experiences from the project “Presenting science is an art”

Abstract

Our intention is to describe and analyse the experience gathered during the work on the project 'Presenting science is art. Popularising the results of social research at the Night of Culture festival in Lublin'. One of its aims was to provide practical knowledge about the challenges that accompany the popularisation of science, especially the outcomes of social research. The text deals with two aspects: the experience coming from popularisation activities at a mass, outdoor event such as Night of Culture in Lublin, and the experience of working on the project with the invited experts. As it turned out, the project brought about many unforeseen situations and twists and turns, which revealed the flaws in our ideas concerning the popularisation of scientific knowledge. The article begins with an outline of the project – the underlying assumptions, target groups and outcomes. We then describe the difficulties we faced as a project team. We were aware of some of them from the beginning, others emerged during the work, and some only came to full light during the Night of Culture. In the last part of the article, we attempt at answering two fundamental questions – what was successful in the project and what should have been done differently?