Our latest Belgian art article visits Bozar’s latest compelling exhibition.
Studiotopia. Colliding Epistemes. Science for Art’s sake?
After almost two years of Art&Science residencies, Bozar presents the artistic results (drawings, paintings, video artworks, experimental ceramics…) of a collaborative process in which science and tech laboratories have opened up to artistic invention to provide unconventional responses to planetary challenges.
The boundaries between science and art have been completely destabilized by the Anthropocene – the most recent period in Earth’s history, when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems.
From 6 May’22 to 19 Jun.’22, Bozar is bringing together in its Bozar Lab artworks that emerged from a collaborative process in which science and tech laboratories have opened up to artistic invention. The impulse for such collaborations resides in the here and now of climate breakdown and biodiversity collapse, a planetary crisis.
The exhibition Colliding Epistemes. Science for Art’s sake? investigates the consequences of bringing artistic positions and scientific expertise into close proximity, exploring the friction that arises from the collision of disciplines, methodologies and mindsets. The diversity of approaches in this exhibition reflects the eclectic palette of scientific expertise in the Studiotopia project, from oncology and psychology to chemistry and biology. The results? They are equally wide-ranging: from drawings and paintings, to video artworks and experimental ceramics.
Above: Sandra Lorenzi’s collaborative project together with Belgian scientist Jean-Christophe Marine is the question How to Read Poetry to Cancer Cells? It includes a film in which poetry is read aloud in Latin to cancer cells, including excerpt from Ovid’s Metamorphosis while shots of the healing stone malachite point to sensorial flows that cannot be captured by the apparatus of mainstream science.
www.bozar.be
