Fair/Fear: Resonances II

Abstract

Catalogue of the Resonances II Exhibition: The Resonances Festival (and the exhibition it opens) is the flagship of the SciArt Project. It builds on the first Resonances Festival, on Food, that was held in Milan in October 2015, in the frame of the EXPO2105 . To prepare for this year’s Festival, and to investigate the rich territory of the meaning of Fairness and Fear, a Summer School with scientists, policy makers and artists took place at the JRC in the summer of 2016. Each artist participated in scientific briefings, discussing and questioning them. In dialogues with the scientists they made proposals for a work/installation, making fairness visible in often surprising or oblique ways. In total, 31 proposals for art installations or performances were made. 15 were selected by a panel composed of members of the SciArt Project and distinguished arts-science experts . The selected exhibits touch upon five domains: society, economy, nature/environment, science and the cosmos. Often these domains morph into one another, society moving into economy and economy touching upon nature. These are the Resonances – strictly plural! – that the SciArt Project invokes. Between these domains, they evince an intertwined world where borders fade away and society influences nature like art can influence science. Each artist follows his/her own specialty and concerns, ties them to the science s/he has learned, and elaborates her/his questions with a new urgency to the viewer.