A GROUND-BREAKING festival aiming at bringing the arts and sciences together is coming to Winchester.

The Winchester Festival of Art and the Mind will be the first of its kind in the UK and has been made possible thanks to an innovation cash award.

A series of seminars and events will take place at various venues throughout Winchester over three days in March.

Schools, businesses, universities and colleges will all contribute to what the organisers hope will become an established annual event.

Inspiration for the festival has come from new techniques for brain scanning and imaging and allow people to see what happens when the mind is stimulated.

The festival will take this learning into a new arena when scientists examine the effects of performance art as it happens and exhibited art when it is shown to an audience.

It will bring together eminent scientists like VS Ramachandran with contemporary figures from the world of art including Anthony Gormley.

An award of £7,000 has been donated by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), an organisation that invests in UK creativity and innovation.

Chief executive Jeremy Newton said: "NESTA is delighted to be able to help this important festival get off the ground and I am proud to see that our investment has been a

catalyst for other funders to offer their support.

"NESTA exists to pioneer new ways of adding to public understanding of arts and science and the Festival of the Mind is a perfect example of these disciplines working successfully together to break new ground."