Tre Stazioni per Arte-Scienza

'Ti con Zero' is a reflection on how contemporary art intersects with the scientific world. The exhibition gathers the work of 31 Italian and international artists. 'T zero' is a mathematical notation used to indicate the first moment at which one begins to observe a phenomenon, a moment of stasis fixed in time and space that opens up to endless possibilities. This dimension turns out to be a privileged viewpoint in which knowledge and imagination are converging.

For 'La Scienza di Roma', Formafantasma embraces the idea of exhibition making as a tool for learning. The show focuses on an impressive array of materials to reconstruct the history of the scientific development in the city. The visitors enter the universe of anthropology, chemistry, mathematic, biology, physics, aerospace and astronomy with the works of Stanislao Cannizzaro, Emma Castelnuovo, Giovanni Battista Grassi, Enrico Fermi and Guglielmo Marconi, to name just a few.

Inspired by the way didactic books are constructed, the exhibition design divides the space into different areas: the highlights are placed in the middle of the rooms while the remaining objects are displayed almost as in taxonomy on one of the side walls. Opposite to this, blown-up images and extensive texts contextualise the materials on display. The visitors are empowered to make choices, deciding if being guided in the tour of the show by the evocative power of objects or the informative nature of the photos on display, all selected from archival materials of the city of Rome.

The Galileo-Kircher room is conceived as a cabinet of curiosity with a separate experience. The pieces here are displayed all across the walls as well as in the middle of the room. This continuous flow of artwork and text highlights the peculiar atmosphere of the space. The visitors get a close look at the original watercolours depicting the phases of the moon painted by Galileo Galilei, some of his measuring instruments, as well as Athanasius Kircher's Sciateric Tables, to name just a few.

'Incertezza' looks at the methodologies and formulation of ideas within the scientific field. The concepts explored range from probability to studies looking at the spread of diseases and climate changes. They are set as interactive installations and physical machinery in an all pink environment. In the western world, pink as a colour has grown far from any scientific affiliation due to the constructed gender bias that pink is frivolous and a cliché of femininity, not conforming to scientific seriousness. The design thus follows the attempt of the curatorial content to subvert the cliché of a science exhibition. The same way the scientific precision and certainty is questioned through the content, the set design subverts the monolith of science exhibition set in darkness by placing it within a pink environment. By doing so Formafantasma opens to as a sense of estrangement and fluidity of content and spatial circulation.

Working as a connection between these very diverse exhibitions is a rug with a 10 meter diameter, placed in the center of the rotunda. The rug together with the set of pre-existing seatings provide the necessary space for public programs. The rotunda activates the museum with extensive new layers of content and reflections on the material displayed. The rug enters in a subtle dialogue with the neo-classical architecture of the Palazzo. It has been designed and custom made with the guidance and care of the Milan based design company CC Tapis.