The national final award ceremony held on 6th April in Naples marked the end of the Art&Science across Italy competition: the European project for the dissemination of scientific culture in Italian high schools, organized for the years 2016-18 by INFN, by CERN and by the European network CREATIONS. Spun off from the international movement called STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics), engaged in initiatives to unite the creativity of the scientific sector with the arts, the project involved students of secondary high schools from various Italian cities: over 3000 girls and boys were involved in the production of works of art inspired by science. The final event was held in an ideal connection with the restart, after the winter hibernation, of the LHC accelerator at CERN, whose research activity was the main source of inspiration for the works made by the students. The Art&Science across Italy project was structured in progressive steps with seminars in schools and universities, visits to museums and scientific laboratories, workshops held by experts from the world of science and art, and tutoring activities during the creation of the artistic compositions. For each of the cities involved, the initiative developed in four phases – training, concept, creation and competition – after which there was a local exhibition and prizes awarded to the best works. After the training course structured along a whole academic year, the students of 40 secondary schools of various cities designed and created hundreds of works of art, using techniques ranging from painting to sculpture, from photography to videos, exhibited locally at first, and then in a final national exhibition. Amongst the 400 works created, an international jury, made up by scientists, art experts and communication experts, chose the best ones, whose authors were awarded a Master’s course at CERN on the relationship between art and science, to be held in the Summer of 2018. The 50 works taking part in the national competition were exhibited for the whole month of April, within the exhibition on “I colori del bosone di Higgs” (“The colours of Higgs’ boson”) at the National Museum of Archaeology in Naples, whose permanent exhibition, the art@CMS collection (http://artcms.web.cern.ch/artcms), gathers roughly forty works, fruit of the collaboration between a professional artist and a scientist, previously shown in international events and exhibitions (such as Singapore, Miami, Beijing, Chicago and Geneva).
4 April 2018
