It used to be a cold, uninspiring and characterless pharmaceutical manufacturing plant. Now the 212,000 square foot plant in Yale, Connecticut, is the home of a newly established Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, whose aim is to unite the University of Connecticut’s resources and the collections of the state’s three main museums, to “advance conservation science and its practice around the world.”

In creating and developing state-of-the-art techniques and tools that will result in the world of conservation advance and expand, the new institute has been described by Robin Hogen, a spokesperson for Connecticut University, as “the first of its kind”.

This unique and highly innovative institute is being funded by Lisbet Rausing, the heiress to the Swedish food processing and packaging company, Tetra Pak, and whose husband, Peter Baldwin is a professor and author of several books related to comparative history of modern Europe and the United States, who received his B.A from Yale in 1978.

The digitisation of works of art and artefacts of conservation is at the heart of the institute’s activities. So far, the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage has digitised a quarter of a million works from its various collections, these images are available to view online free of charge.

In continuing the area’s development of nanotechnology, the new institute will continue researching and developing the manipulation of atomic matter in order to advance conservation techniques and to slow down the process of degradation of works of art.

The state-of-the-art institute will develop computer-based techniques to preserve ancient mosaics, including a Byzantine example from northern Jordan.

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Global interest in the Duchess of Cambridge and the death of Alexander McQueen appear to have increased London’s fashion profile.

According to a survey by Global Language Monitor, London has now overtaken New York as the world’s fashion capital for 2011. The Texas-based trend analyser tracks the frequency of words and phrases across print, electronic and social media.

The city has experienced a significant increase in media interest, and it is speculated that this was fuelled by the suicide of British designer, Alexander McQueen, and also the interest in Kate Middleton following her wedding to Prince William in April this year.

She is now considered as a global fashion icon, and is even featured on Vanity Fair’s 72^nd Annual Best-Dressed list. She is continuously praised for her signature style – a mix of higher and lower end fashion, which was brought to the media’s attention during her first royal trip across Canada and North America.

Alexander McQueen still continues to steal the headlines over a year after his tragic death, as a retrospective exhibition of his work in New York is ranked as one of the 10 most visited exhibitions in the Metropolitan Museum’s 141-year history. There has also been a strong public opinion that the exhibition should be brought to London – McQueen’s home and inspiration.

Of course, these two popular public figures were also united when Kate’s eagerly-anticipated wedding dress was designed by Sarah Burton – McQueen’s right-hand woman and the brand’s head designer after his death. The dress also proved to be Buckingham Palace’s main attraction since opening to the public last month.

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Art and science are two separate entities, right? Traditionally, perhaps, although these two separate commodities are being uniquely combined at an exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science, in an innovative new exhibition titled, “Our Expanding Oceans.”

The exhibition will include the work of the pioneering artist Mary Edna Fraser, who has had her work exhibited in museums and galleries in America and across the globe. The American artist’s exhibition explores the relationship between climate change and the planet, with an emphasis on the rising oceans and melting ice.

This unique exposition features more than 60 dyed silk cloths, infused with colour to depict satellite, aerial and conceptual perspectives of the environment.

These stunning cloths have been hand dyed by Mary Edna Fraser, using a combination of ancient and modern dying techniques, and highlight a stunning visual interpretation of the damage global warming is having upon our planet.

Working alongside Mary Edna Fraser is scientist Orrin Pilkey, director of the programme for the study of developed coastlines within the diversion of earth and ocean sciences at Duke University and author of “Living by the Rules of the Sea” and “The Beaches are Moving: The Drowning of America’s Shoreline.”

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Traditionally jewellery has been considered to be ‘craft’ rather than art. Although this common perception of jewellery not being ‘en-par’ with paintings, sculptures and photography, is gradually changing, with an increasing number of art museums in America dedicating this decorative niche of modern art to its own exhibitions and shows.

Many of the major art institutions across the US, such as Richmond’s Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas Museum of Art and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, have, in recent years, been involved in exhibiting jewellery as a serious form of art, which have proved extremely popular by the number of visitors these exhibitions attract.

Remarking about the changing attitudes surrounding jewellery being exhibited as a form of art in museums, Yvonne Markowitz, who, five years ago, became one of America’s only full-time jewellery curators, curating exhibitions devoted to jewellery only at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, said:

“It’s as if jewellery had become the bastard child of decorative arts. But that attitude has changed.”

In response to the growing trend and popularity of jewellery exhibits as an expression of art, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) is opening its first gallery devoted entirely to jewellery, making it the first solely jewellery ordained  gallery at a major art museum in the US.

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Hidden amongst a maze of vast pine, oak and cypress forests, cavernous gorges, caves and vineyards, lies the town of La-Garde-Freinet, in the Var department of Provence, the lesser known neighbour of the glamorous Cote d’Azur.

It is however, this tranquil and natural setting that has attracted a steady flow of artists and developed a comparatively clandestine artistic community. And it is within this albeit furtive community that the Galerie Aalders stands, opened by local British expat Michael Aalders, who had a dream to offer lunch and art viewing in the Maures mountains.

It is within the walls of the Galerie Aalders that the work of Brian Duffy can be found, a celebrated English photographer and film producer, who is best remembered for his fashion photography during the 60s and 70s, and, even more specifically, for his iconic image of David Bowie on the cover of the Aladdin Sane album in 1973.

Brian Duffy, through his inspirational fashion photography, really encapsulated the mood of the 1960s and alongside the likes of Terrance Donovan and David Bailey, became a symbol of this progressive and alternative era.

Since his death last year, Brian Duffy’s work has gathered even greater prominence and esteem. In celebration of the revered photographer, the Galerie Aalders, in this comparatively sleepy corner of Provence, is displaying a selection of Duffy’s most tantalising and exceptional of images.

This rare exhibition was put on by Chris Duffy, Brian Duffy’s son and Mike Aalders, who collaborated with the photographer extensively throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

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