Co-founded by Jessica Charlesworth and Tim Parsons, Parsons & Charlesworth creates visually provocative objects, installations and digital media that invite viewers into meticulously crafted and designed alternate realities. Working with materials such as cast resins, woven willow, bent metal, inflatable PVC, molded fabrics and readymades they transform conventional materials into artifacts from imagined futures that feel both strange and familiar. Their studio operates as an artistic laboratory where speculative scenarios take physical form, challenging viewers to reconsider their relationship with technology and ecology. Through their richly detailed worlds, Parsons & Charlesworth examines the complex mythology of progress that underpins contemporary society. Each project begins with extensive research and dialogue with scientists, specialists and communities, resulting in works that blur the boundaries between art, design, and critical inquiry. Like archaeologists of possible futures, they excavate the moral dilemmas embedded in our technological aspirations. Rather than offering utopian solutions, their work creates spaces where uncomfortable questions can surface. By materialising abstract concepts into tangible experiences, they invite audiences to physically engage with alternate ways of living and being. Their practice ultimately serves as a mirror, reflecting our collective anxieties and desires about what lies ahead and how we might chart a more just and enlightened future ahead. 

They are recent NEW INC Members on the Creative Science Track as part of the New Museum mentorship incubator program. Tim Parsons studied (MA) Design Products at the Royal College of Art and Jessica Charlesworth studied Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art. They both teach at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Their work has appeared internationally in galleries, museums, institutions, and festivals including Venice Architecture Biennale, Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia (MAAT Lisbon), Science Gallery Dublin, Science Gallery Monterrey, piknic (Seoul), Istanbul Design Biennial, the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), London Design Festival and the Chicago Cultural Center. 

Recent honors, grants, and awards for their work include the 2024 Lumen Arts Prize Futures Award,  2024 Artist Residency grant from Canada Council for the Arts Grant, 2022 Research grant from Canada Council for the Arts,  2021 Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Grant, support from the British Council, a 2020 Mitchell Enhancement Award from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 10 Faculty Enrichment Grants from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2019 Canada Council for the Arts Realization Grant, 2016 grant from the Awesome Foundation and 2010 First Prize Winner for Project Vienna, MAKVienna, Austria. 

Notable artist residencies include the 2023 Artist-In-Residence Project Space at Headlands Center for the Arts, the 2019 Artist-In-Residence at Krems, Austria, the 2016 Residency at Kriti Gallery, Varanasi, India, a 2014 Residency at Roger Brown House, New Buffalo, Michigan, a 2013 Residency at Home Is Where The Art Is, Charleston, South Carolina  Their work is featured in various private collections and in the permanent collection at the MAKVienna and DePaul Art Museum.