The Lab

“[Edwards’] enthusiasm is infectious. He comes across as a free-spirited inventor and educator. He is also a pragmatist, conceding that an emphasis on the creative process, and a high tolerance for failure, may make it harder for inventive researchers to achieve financial autonomy. In these austere times, Edwards takes a firm stance on the importance of the imagination.”—Jascha Hoffman, Nature

“The Lab has done much to shake up ideas about the science–public nexus.”—Graham Farmelo, Times Higher Education

“When artists and scientists come together, cheeks gets rosier, voices go up a few notches, eyes sparkle. Facing each others like children, they revert to their primal state of curiosity, imagination, and daring, and complement each others’ comings and shortcomings in matters of discipline, optimism, empathy, and pragmatism. They cannot wait to learn from each other. Just as David Edwards maintains, true innovation cannot happen without culture and it is time this millennial truth becomes a pillar of our educational system.”—Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator of Architecture and Design, MoMA

“The Lab exactingly and enjoyably describes the process of building a ‘funnel shaped’ institution devoted to process—the node of a network that ceaselessly promotes innovation by finding the common thread that links artist and scientist when they’re truly creative (as in this book).”—Jay Cantor, author of On Giving Birth to One’s Own Mother: Essays on Art and Society

“The Lab is a wise and bracing call to arms, a handbook for channeling our creative selves in the early 21st century. For anyone hoping to unleash their inner innovator, David Edwards is essential reading.”—Carl Honoré, author of In Praise of Slowness and Under Pressure

“David Edwards spends his life crossing boundaries. The Lab tells the story of his trailblazing initiatives to cross-pollinate the creative energies of artists and scientists around the world. It is an illuminating and inspiring meditation on the nature of creativity itself, not just in formal labs but in everyday life.”—Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D., author of The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything