Exploring the creative space made when artists and archaeologists work together, this ground-breaking book puts an established contemporary artist, Simon Callery, in conversation with experienced archaeologist, Doug Bailey, to provide an interdisciplinary approach to the fields.

Bailey and Callery discuss the key themes common to each discipline, as well as their practice and crafts, while documenting the step-by-step decisions each make when they work in the fields of archaeology and contemporary art. Whereas Bailey concentrates on the way that people understand archaeology as a way to recover the past and the opportunities for alternative expression made possible through an art-inspired way of thinking and working, Callery focuses on three of his paintings in response to his artist-in-residencies on archaeological excavation.

Looking at the wider context of the relationship between the two disciplines, this book provides commentaries on key themes that archaeology and art share such as authorship, creativity, originality, time and meaning. Running through all of this is a complementary theme: how do archaeologists or artists use cross-disciplinary collaboration to transform their disciplines? Finally, Bailey and Callery discuss the rich potential that exists for future experimental collaboration between archaeology and contemporary art.