Trans.MISSION II – Confluence

The overarching strand of the collaboration between Hay Festival and the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) – Trans.MISSION II – features award-winning illustrator and author Chris Haughton. He has taken the science behind the three newly created stories, written by Erika Stockholm (Peru), Juan Cardenas (Colombia) and Patrice Lawrence (UK) and responded with an illustrated animation, drawing together the main themes and commonalities that the research in these three countries is revealing.

Chris Haughton is an Irish author/illustrator based in London. He was listed in Time magazine's 'DESIGN 100' for the work he has been doing for fair trade clothing company People Tree. He has written and illustrated four books: A Bit Lost, Oh No George!, Shh! We Have a Plan and Goodnight Everyone. His iOS app Hatmonkey came out in 2014 and virtual reality experience Little Earth launched in August 2017. Chris has also created a social business, madebynode.com, to connect design and fair trade and make rugs and toys. Find out more about Chris at chrishaughton.com.

Chris Haughton's work launched at Hay Festival in Wales, 21–31 May 2020. Trans.MISSION II is the first international public engagement collaboration project for NERC, with new pieces of work also launched at Hay Festival events in Arequipa, Peru (7–10 November 2019) and Cartagena, Colombia (30 January–2 February 2020). 

Trans.MISSION II is a global project pairing leading environmental researchers with award-winning storytellers to communicate cutting-edge science to new audiences. At a time of unprecedented public interest in how human actions affect the environment, Trans.MISSION II paired NERC researchers from Peru, Colombia and the UK with artists and storytellers in each country to create stories about ongoing research projects.