In 2018, Fondazione Prada set up a multidisciplinary project in the field of neuroscience that aims to explore the human brain, grasp the complexity of its functions… These reflections have given birth to “Human Brains”, a program of exhibitions, online debates, conferences and publications that began in November 2020 and will end next November. On the occasion of the 2022 Venice Biennale of Art, Fondazione Prada presents the exhibition “Human Brains: It Begins with an Idea,” curated by Udo Kittelmann and Raryn Simon, at Ca’ Corner della Regina, Venice, from April 23 to November 27, 2022.

The Prada Foundation was created in 1993 by Miuccia Prada, the granddaughter of the founder of the famous fashion house, which she manages with her husband, Patrizio Bertelli. Dedicated to contemporary art, cinema and philosophy, it organizes numerous cultural events, sometimes in atypical places such as abandoned sheds or churches. In 2011, it restored an 18th century palace, the Ca’ Corner della Regina, located on the Grand Canal in Venice, where the exhibition “Human Brains: It Begins with an Idea” is taking place.

The ” Human Brains “

project
“Human Brains is the result of extensive research conducted in collaboration with a scientific council headed by Giancarlo Comi, composed of researchers, doctors, philosophers, psychologists, linguists, curators … such as Jubin Abutalebi, Massimo Cacciari, Viviana Kasam, Udo Kittelmann, Letizia Leoc … The brain is analyzed from an anatomical-functional point of view, focusing on the processes of brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases.

The project has been titled in the plural form “brains” to underline the complexity of the human brain but also the singularity of each individual. It has been tested through different scientific approaches: neurobiology, philosophy, psychology, neurochemistry, linguistics, artificial intelligence and robotics.

Miuccia Prada states:

“I have been thinking about this project for years, and we are finally ready to commit to this intention, thanks to the support of a group of philosophers, scientists and researchers who form the scientific council of “human brain”. During the 25 years of Fondazione Prada’s activity, I have always wanted to work on culturally relevant ideas. This specific project attributed to neuroscience is perhaps our most important to date: for a visual art institution such as Fondazione Prada, dealing with science is a real challenge, as it will have to give voice and form to the researchers’ ideas. This dialogue, which is now beginning to embody the ”Human Brains” project, underlines the importance of cooperation, in order to give value and disseminate studies and practices that are significant for our present.”

This project has four phases:

• In 2020, the online conference “Culture and Consciousness,” a scientific approach structured into five daily discussions on the study of consciousness in neuroscience, took place from November 9-13.
• “Human Brains: Conversations” is the second phase of the multidisciplinary program. The “Conversations” took place online from September 2021 to this past April. Scientists, academics from different fields, a large community of students, researchers, recognized by neuroscience or, more generally, for their studies on the brain, were able to exchange among themselves or interact with the public on an open platform.
• The exhibition “Everything begins with an idea” from April 23 to November 27, 2022.
• The scientific forum and exhibition project “Preserving the Brain”, planned in Milan in September and October 2022 will focus on neurodegenerative diseases and pathophysiological mechanisms to treatment.

The exhibition

Miuccia Prada asked herself the following question:

“We are increasingly interested in relevant topics that impact everyone’s life, even when those topics are difficult to understand. For a cultural institution whose identity is rooted in the visual arts field, dealing with science is an intellectual and political challenge: how do you make an exhibition about ideas and knowledge?”

The exhibition “Human Brains: It Begins with an Idea” is curated by Udo Kittelmann in collaboration with Taryn Simon on three levels of the palace.

On the first floor, video projections introduce the visitor to the anatomy, physiology, imaging of the brain, its development and functioning are presented.

On the first and second floors, more than 110 historical objects, drawings, paintings, prints and books marking some of the milestones in the understanding of the brain are on display, illuminating forgotten chapters from the Mesopotamian age and ancient Egypt, the Italian Renaissance, the Edo period in Japan, as well as the imaging techniques of the last thirty years.

Thirty-two international fiction writers have written texts around these objects, performed by audiobook narrator George Guidall in short videos directed by Taryn Simon.

The “conversation machine” is installed in the center of the second floor: thirty-six neuroscientists, psychologists, neuro-linguists and philosophers appear to dialogue through thirty-two screens about neuroscientific experiments, their philosophical and ethical dimensions. Through excerpts of more than 140 hours of interviews orchestrated by Taryn Simon, this self-organized system answers to itself, building and assimilating its own order and disorder in a lasting way.

The exhibition traces the history of the evolution of neuroscience, innovation and discovery, and attempts to sketch the contours of consciousness, but also the gaps in scientific research that prevent us from understanding the human brain in its entirety.

Translated from Neurosciences : la Fondation Prada présente l’exposition « Human Brains : It Begins with an Idea » à Venise