Institutions, Venice
Group Exhibition
Human Brains
Fondazione PradaTickets available at: bit.ly/3v2qAhP On the occasion of the 2022 Venice Art Biennale, Fondazione Prada’s venetian venue hosts an exhibition entirely dedicated to brain studies that will mark the third phase of Human Brains project. The exhibition, curated by Udo Kittelmann in dialogue with the scientific board, will represent an attempt to translate into an exhibition form the history of the studies on human thinking and the current scientific research up until future challenges, linked to the developments of molecular medicine and the analysis of microscopical mechanisms that make up our brain activity. In 2018 Fondazione Prada undertook a multidisciplinary project for the study of scientific themes in depth. These reflections engendered Human Brains, a program of exhibitions, debates online and publishing activities that will take place from November 2020 to November 2022. The project is the result of a complex research conducted in collaboration with a scientific board chaired by Giancarlo Comi and composed of researchers, physicians, psychologists, linguists, philosophers, popularizers and curators, such as Jubin Abutalebi, Massimo Cacciari, Viviana Kasam, Udo Kittelmann, Letizia Leocani, Andrea Moro, and Daniela Perani. As stated by Miuccia Prada, President of Fondazione Prada, “I have been thinking about this project for years, and finally we are ready to commit to this intent, thanks the support of a group of philosophers, scientists and researchers that form the scientific board of Human Brains. During the 25 year-long activity of Fondazione Prada, I have always wished to work on relevant cultural ideas. This specific project devoted to neuroscience is maybe our most important so far: for a visual art institution such as the Fondazione Prada, dealing with science is a true challenge, as it will have to give voice and shape to the ideas of the researchers. This dialogue that starts now to embody the project Human Brains underlines the importance of cooperation, in order to give value and disseminate meaningful studies and practices for our present.” The Human Brains initiative is centered on the brain, a unique organ for the complexity of its functions, which are fundamental to characterize human beings. The scope of the investigation is survey different fields: from neurobiology to philosophy, from psychology to neurochemistry, from linguistics to artificial intelligence and robots. The brain is analyzed from an anatomical-functional point of view, while also focusing on the brain aging processes and on neurodegenerative diseases. Fondazione Prada’s interest in the current state of the sciences is an expansion of its intellectual inquiry, but one that continues to address fundamental issues of today. Historically, science and culture have been inseparable, and in constant dialogue with each other. The advent of our “technological age” has produced new frontiers of invention, and new social, cultural and political questions for humanity. Culture evolves with these profound shifts in scientific knowledge. And so too, our understanding of what it means to be a human during increasingly uncertain times. An open project in constant evolution, Human Brains aims to experiment new collaboration and dialogue methods among scientists and scholars thus testing innovative communication formats addressed to a heterogeneous and international public. In Autumn 2022, Fondazione Prada’s Milan venue will host a scientific conference and an exhibition conceived in collaboration with 13 among the most important international institutions. The aim is to stimulate an open and critical dialogue with physicians, experts and scholars from all over the world on the topic of normal and pathological aging of our brain, as well as to promote a strategic and coordinated combination of different stakeholders and the contribution of technological and methodological innovation. The international institutions involved in the project are: Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Ann Romney Center for Neurological Diseases, Boston, US; Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, Sorbonne University, Neurology department and ICM, Paris, France; UniSR – Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy; Juntendo University Hospital, Department of Neurology, Tokyo, Japan; Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) within the Helmholtz Association, Bonn, Germany; Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Munich, Germany; Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, MC Gill Research and teaching Institute, Canada; Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Department of Neurology, Tianjin, China; UCSF Weill Institute for Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco, US; University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery Faculty of Brain Sciences, Institute of Neurology, Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation, UK; Weizmann Institute of Science, Tel Aviv, Israel; and Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, US.