Plants and their relationship with men, history and the world are at the core of the second event of the project SciArt SwitzerlAnd by the IBSA Foundation for scientific research and MASI Lugano. Swiss artist Uriel Orlow will be in conversation with the Director of the Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen and curator of the Unlimited section for the Art Basel fair, Giovanni Carmine.

Through means such as video, photography, drawing, sound and installation, Uriel Orlow creates a multimedia universe where botany often takes centre stage. Working slowly, over extensive periods, Orlow succeeds in exploring new perspecitves and approaches to understanding ecosystems, territory and history. In his most recent research, the artist has focused in particular on the study of plants, which he sees as genuine and active witnesses to Europe’s colonial history and climate change and, more generally, as bearers of a deep-rooted memory. Using a “plant” perspective as his starting point, Orlow maps out a tight network of more-than-human entanglements that shine a light on the complex relationships between plants and history.

SciArt SwitzerlAnd is a project by the IBSA Foundation for Scientific Research and MASI Lugano, Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana, launched with the aim of giving rise to a stimulating dialogue between two distant yet parallel fields in order to promote scientific culture in the context of an international research initiative spanning both science and art.

SciArt SwitzerlAnd will be producing events of various kinds and digital products that explore artworks profoundly influenced by interactions with scientists, discoveries and research bodies.

Science and art have always coexisted across time and space. Though with different methods and purposes, artists and scientists both observe the world around them, opening up new perspectives, interpretations and meanings.

The public will have a chance to explore fascinating creations springing from the encounter between these two dimensions, and hear directly from the artists themselves about how science, technology and research have inspired their work.

SciArt SwitzerlAnd picks up on the series of conversations entitled “la Scienza a regola d’Arte” which concluded in 2022, the result of a fruitful collaboration between IBSA Foundation and MASI Lugano.