By Percy Chen, Junior Project Manager Art-Science
From November 25 to December 1, supported by Pro Helvetia Shanghai, Swiss Arts Council and West Bund, Future Lab Expo took place at Shanghai West Bund Artistic Center. It will be the first of its kind, for its program not only includes art exhibitions, but also live lectures from renowned professors, workshops, performances, and forums.
Moreover, on November 26 to 27, Future Lab collaborated with Fudan Philosophy College to bring together 20 artists and scienctists around the world to discuss the connections between frontier art and experimental science.
Among the speakers, we had Monica Bello, curator and head of arts at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), Geneava, Switzerland. Her unique position of leading the artistic residencies between artists and hardcore physicists, engineers in laboratory environment makes her the perfect person for the cross-disciplinary discussion.
To her, art and science share something fundamental to human: wonder and curiosity. It is part of our nature to question, to seek out answers, and to improve our understanding. Especially today with how fast and convenient our devices can connect to the world web, all of us are informed of our environment, development trends, global problems, and so on. Art and science thus become a way to create meaning out of information. They are means for us to make sense of our conversations and experience.
In particular at Cern, physicists and engineers are trying to understand the property of matters and the origin of the Universe. The awes, curiosity, and just the sheer emotion to the research of the very thing that enables us to go beyond any particular discipline. This is why and where art and science merge.
Monica Bello Speech
The venue was packed with audiences
Some very interesting questions were asked, “What fundamentally is human experience?”
Live class session with Experimental Art College professors. Next to this classroom was another one with Central Academy of Fine Arts professors.
Future Lab West Bund Artistic Center exhibition
Future Lab West Bund Artistic Center exhibition