Arts at CERN

Arts at CERN and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia are pleased to announce artists Elisa Storelli and Rohini Devasher as the winners of the Connect India residency

Following an open call for applications, a jury of cultural experts awarded the Swiss and Indian artists the dual residency as part of Connect, an international programme intended to foster experimentation in the arts in connection with fundamental science across the world.

Elisa Storelli and Rohini Devasher are invited to carry out a four-week residency at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS) in Bengaluru, followed by a three-week stay at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva. The Connect India residency will expose the artists to two unique scientific organizations and the fundamental research conducted there. While CERN offers a wide range of experiments in particle physics, the ICTS engages in research areas that include statistical and condensed matter physics, physical biology and mathematics. The goal of the Connect residency is to develop research towards an artistic project in dialogue with the scientists, engineers and staff of the laboratories, and with the support of the combined curatorial teams of Arts at CERN and ICTS.

Elisa Storelli’s A para-chronology of atoms and stars

Elisa Storelli’s practice is centred on the artistic examination of time, which she refers to as “chronomorphology”. Her research delves into the ways time has been measured, calculated and experienced across cultures and centuries. Through installations, lectures and sound performances, she presents playful and poetic perspectives around the notions of time.

In her project, A para-chronology of atoms and stars, Storelli intends to develop a performative lecture in dialogue with researchers at CERN and ICTS. Drawing inspiration from the visualisation of particle collisions events, the performance will resemble a constellation of elements, including scientific discoveries, historical events and tales from non-Western traditions. With this project, she aims to create a scientific narrative in the form of a multimedia poem that invites the audience to consider the notions of time and chronology in shaping our understanding of the world.

Rohini Devasher’s In a Mirror, Darkly

Rohini Devasher is an artist and an amateur astronomer. Her films, prints, sounds and drawings map the complexities of time and space.In a Mirror, Darkly, Devasher’s project for the Connect India residency, will evolve as a close reading of the methods and interactions of observation in fundamental physics through the lenses of wonder and “the strange”. Its title references both the mirroring of matter and antimatter at CERN, as well as the optics used to measure gravitational waves – a new horizon in observational astronomy and a key area of research at ICTS. Through Connect India, Devasher looks forward to walking through this dark and wonderful mirror world where observation itself may be redefined.

Rohini Devasher and Elisa Storelli will complete their Connect India residencies between April and July 2023. Following successful editions in South Africa and India, more residency opportunities at CERN and in collaboration with prestigious scientific organisations in Chile will be announced in the coming months as part of the Connect collaboration framework.

About the jury

The jury of Connect India was composed of Mónica Bello, Curator and Head of Arts at CERN; Radha Mahendru, independent curator; Adrian Notz, curator at the ETH AI Center; Akshay Pathak, Head of Pro Helvetia New Delhi; and Leonie Thalmann, Innovation and Society Specialist at Pro Helvetia.