Arts at CERN

From 2019 to 2022, Arts at CERN built a collaborative framework with the Barcelona City Council and the Institute of Culture of Barcelona. As a city where a rich artistic heritage intersects with cutting-edge scientific research, Barcelona is home to leading cultural and scientific communities, fostering new forms of artistic expression beyond traditional disciplines.

The annual Collide program offered artists a residency split between CERN in Geneva and the Hangar Centre for Art Research and Production in Barcelona, and in collaboration with the city’s scientific laboratories, including the Institute of Cosmos Sciences (ICCUB) and the Institute of High Energy Physics (IFAE). This partnership aligned with the City Council’s goal of positioning Barcelona as a European hub for research and innovation through its Barcelona Science Plan.

Between 2016 and 2018, CERN partnered with Liverpool’s organization FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) for the Collide Award.

Throughout this collaboration, three artists were selected to participate in a residency program. They were invited first to CERN and later to Liverpool, where they joined FACT’s open and collaborative atmosphere. FACT’s wide-ranging program of exhibitions and participant-led art projects provided an ideal setting for the artists to reflect on and contextualize their work.

The Collide Award partnership between CERN and FACT was supported by the University of Liverpool. Particle physicists at the University have played a pivotal role in CERN’s history and early experiments, recently contributing to research ranging from studies on the Higgs boson, antimatter, and dark matter. Additional support for the partnership was provided by Liverpool City Council and Liverpool John Moores University.

This collaboration also led to the creation of the ScANNER network in 2016, an exhibition consortium formed to design the groundbreaking exhibition Broken Symmetries/Quantum and 11 new art commissions. After premiering at FACT in 2018, the exhibition toured to CCCB (Barcelona, Spain), iMAL (Brussels, Belgium), the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (Taiwan), and Kumu (Tallinn, Estonia).

In 2011, in collaboration with CERN, Ars Electronica announced the theme of that year’s festival as Origin – How It All Begins. This partnership aimed to explore the fascinating world of physics research on the fundamental principles of the cosmos, while also offering a fresh perspective on the true significance of scientific environments.

As part of the festival, the Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN programme was established in partnership with the Austria-based digital arts organization Ars Electronica. The residency consisted of two months at CERN, followed by one month at Ars Electronica’s research and development lab, Futurelab. Between 2012 and 2015, three awardees participated in the Collide residencies, spending time both at CERN and in Linz. Additionally, several artists received an Honorary Mention and were invited to CERN for a short visit.