A new UCL–ZSL collaboration is revisiting a historic model of interdisciplinary learning through Reimagining the Studio of Animal Art, a project inspired by London Zoo’s original 1930s studio designed by Berthold Lubetkin and Tecton. Developed as part of the shared bicentenary celebrations of UCL and ZSL, the project brings art and bioscience students together to draw from living animals, museum specimens, zoological archives and historic collections.
Originally conceived as a space for observing and representing animal life, the studio has been rethought for a contemporary context shaped by biodiversity loss, climate change, changing attitudes towards animals and rapid technological change. The project also responds to growing pressure on arts education and unequal access to creative learning.
Led by Professor Kieren Reed (Slade School of Fine Art), Tannis Davidson (UCL Grant Museum of Zoology) and Linda DaVolls (ZSL), the initiative explores drawing as a shared method of attention, enquiry and communication. Across five sessions, students worked between London Zoo, the Grant Museum and ZSL’s Library and Archives, using drawing to study animal form and movement, conservation, museum collections and scientific knowledge.
At the centre of this project is a simple notion that drawing is more than a technical exercise, but is a way of looking carefully, slowing down, asking questions, comparing forms of knowledge, understanding form and communicating across disciplines. Drawing is a shared language and can be an effective way to connect across disciplines, languages and support intercultural communication.
Reimagining the Studio of Animal Art has shown me the extraordinary value of bringing UCL Slade, UCL Biosciences, UCL Grant Museum and ZSL together. Across five sessions, students and staff have drawn from specimens and living animals, shared specialist knowledge, and had meaningful conversations on art, ecology, ethics, and sustainability. I have been deeply impressed by their creativity, generosity and interdisciplinary learning throughout this collaborative partnership.
This collaborative programme, developed as part of ZSL and UCL’s joint bicentenary celebrations, enables students to explore the ways in which biological collections support research, conservation and engagement. It has been wonderful to see the students bring curiosity, creativity, and thoughtful insight to the programme, producing beautiful work while deepening understanding of the importance of collections for learning, engagement, and new ways of seeing and interpreting the natural world.
The project builds on a deep institutional history. When the Slade School of Fine Art was being imagined in the nineteenth century, Edwin Field, who helped translate the terms of the Felix Slade bequest, proposed a model of fine art education that would be closely connected to the wider university. He argued that students should have access not only to the human figure but also to animals “horses, cows, dogs, camels, etc.” and that anatomical professors and demonstrators should support the work of fine art teaching.
This founding vision positioned the Slade not as an art school isolated by discipline but as part of a broader research environment. Field also imagined art students learning from the expertise found elsewhere in university in natural phenomena, geology, physiology, chemistry, optics, mathematics and history.
The project also recollects the historic proximity of the Slade and UCL’s zoological and anatomical teaching. The Slade School of Fine Art and UCL Zoology Department occupied connected institutional spaces, and anatomical teaching played an important role in Slade pedagogy. George Dancer Thane Jr was the first at UCL to teach anatomy at the Slade, establishing a relationship between anatomy and art education that continued through figures such as Henry Tonks, whose surgical knowledge and expertise shaped his teaching of anatomical drawing.
Animal drawing also formed part of early Slade teaching. The 1883–84 Slade prospectus listed drawing and painting from the antique and from life as core areas of study, and between 1887–88 and 1893–94 students could also study animals brought into the school. One account by Slade student Jessie Hall recalls the surprise of encountering a live horse in the Life Room, brought in from the livery stables behind the Slade: “It is not easy to draw a horse in 20 minutes.”
Across five sessions from March to May 2026, students have worked between London Zoo, the UCL Grant Museum of Zoology and ZSL’s archives and library. The sessions combined guided tours, archival research, object-based learning, artist-led drawing workshops, digital methods and interdisciplinary discussion on ethics, conservation and sustainability.
The first session at London Zoo introduced the students to the ZSL site, its animals and its architecture, including the landmark Penguin Pool. Students took part in a Walk and Draw session, using sketching to understand the zoo as a constructed environment: a place shaped by animal care, public engagement, architectural history and conservation priorities. The session ended with time dedicated to drawing the big cats.
For the second session at the Grant Museum, students observed the specimens and object-based teaching methodologies. The session introduced the history of the museum, founder Robert Edmond Grant, the history of Comparative Anatomy and Zoology at UCL, and the initial connections between these departments, the museum and ZSL. Taxidermist Jazmine Miles-Long gave a talk sharing details on her work preserving specimens, highlighting their recent collaboration with the Grant Museum. The students then worked directly from specimens using drawing methods including continuous line, axis and envelope, mark-making, tonal study and longer observational drawing.
The third sessions at ZSL introduced students to the zoo’s library, archives and historic folios, including materials relating to the history of zoological illustration and scientific drawing collections. The students then went into the zoo to draw from primates, monkeys and apes, and we encouraged students to respond to movement, gesture, proportion and character, translating living animal behaviour into drawings.
During this session the students drew from Primates, monkeys and apes and we spent most of our time observing and drawing the gorillas. The closeness enabled us to notice the movement and actions and with the architectural environment made a significant impression. Those drawing needed to respond quickly to gesture, posture, attention and behaviour, accepting partial views and fleeting moments as part of the drawing process.
The fourth session returned to the Grant Museum to consider digitisation and contemporary research tools. A presentation from Dr. Laura Porro, UCL Biosciences Cell & Developmental Biology introduced how specimens can be scanned, animated and rendered using digital tools, including 3D scanning and photogrammetry. This placed traditional observational drawing alongside new technologies for recording, analysing and communicating animal form.
The final session at London Zoo focused on ZSL’s science, conservation impact and ethics, alongside further drawing in the zoo. Students were invited to reflect on the changing role of zoos, the ethics of animal display, and how artistic and scientific practices can contribute to public understanding of the natural world. Working between the different locations and contexts has helped students to understand that drawing not just about the production of creating finished images but a way of evidencing a moment of uncertainty, empathy and knowledge.
Re-imagining the Studio of Animal Art has celebrated the partnership between UCL and ZSL in advancing the teaching of natural sciences through art, education, and research. It has shown the value and desire for interdisciplinary collaboration across arts and sciences, using museums and archives, to broaden our understanding of how we can learn from the natural world and better protect it.
Interdisciplinarity: Art and Bioscience
A key finding of the project has been the value of creating shared spaces where art and bioscience students work side by side. Designed to develop observational, technical and interpretive skills, it also helped students understand the distinct methods and assumptions of each discipline. Slade students engaged with anatomy, behaviour and conservation science, while bioscience students used drawing to study form, structure and movement in ways that complement scientific observation.
The workshops also highlighted the importance of language. Participants developed shared terms around structure, classification and representation, recognising that interdisciplinary work requires time, trust and translation. Rather than simply combining subjects, it depends on explaining methods, listening across disciplines and building a shared vocabulary without losing their differences.
Being a part of the project has given me an amazing opportunity to see the natural world in different, but complementary, ways to my research, both through learning techniques for observing and drawing animals and through the perspectives from others both within and outside of my area of study.
Future skills
The project also makes a case for developing future skills across disciplines. In a world shaped by ecological crisis, technological change and complex public debate, students need to observe carefully, think across systems, communicate clearly and collaborate beyond their specialisms.
In this context we have been considering that drawing methodologies could be understood as a future-facing skill. It trains attention, patience, focus, responsiveness and critical interpretation. (Photo Students drawing)
Aligned with UCL200 themes, the project created interdisciplinary opportunities linking art, science, ecology and conservation, while highlighting the need to strengthen art communication. As with science communication, students must be able to explain the value and impact of their work to non-specialist audiences and across sectors.
The project showed that art communication is not simply advocacy but a way of describing how artistic methods produce knowledge, engage ethics and communicate complexity. For students working across art and bioscience, collaboration and clear articulation of their practice are increasingly essential.
The project will culminate in an exhibition of drawings created during the project along with photographic documentation of the different events. A report will capture feedback, learning outcomes and opportunities for future collaborations. We are also exploring a lunchtime lecture or panel discussion, and plan to run a staff drawing workshop between UCL and ZSL in the autumn term.
Longer term outcomes could include the development of new teaching in art, ecology and sustainability, potentially open to students from both art and non-art backgrounds. This would embed the project’s ethos within UCL’s teaching offer and extend its legacy beyond the bicentenary year.
Through Reimagining the Studio of Animal Art, a historical activity between UCL and ZSL has been revived, creating a contemporary learning environment in which drawing, science, conservation, collections and communication can inform interdisciplinarity and practice-based pedagogies. The project demonstrates how projects such as this can help students (and staff) to look again at the living world and creative education with rigour, care and imagination.
Reimagining the Studio of Animal Art was made possible with funding from UCL200. The project team would like to thank all participating staff from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL Biosciences, the UCL Grant Museum of Zoology and the Zoological Society of London. Their generosity, expertise and commitment to interdisciplinary research, teaching and learning were central to the success of the programme and to the development of a shared space for art, science, conservation and communication.
Lucy Pope 2026
Lucy Pope 2026
Kieren Reed 2026
Lucy Pope 2026
© Lucy Pope
Kieren Reed 2026
Lucy Pope 2026
Lucy Pope 2026