Unconnected Yet
Both science and art, are spiritual activities, not practical, whatever practical applications may be derived from their results. Disorder, lack of meaning, are spiritual, not physical, discomforts; order and sense are spiritual and not physical satisfactions.¹
Wystan Hugh Auden, 1955
The scientific spirit is not opposed to the aesthetic, the moral, or the social. It is a spirit of enlightenment, of social advance, of creative thought.²
Harold Taylor, 1960
I think that curiosity is probably the most important energy that any creative person can have.³
Robert Rauschenberg, 1997
Unconnected Yet is an exhibition born out of a desire to celebrate the inquisitive-creative similarities between two disciplines—art and science. Beyond bringing together a collection of art that explores science, it was also created to encourage and promote opportunities for artists and scientists to come together and, ultimately, “to push the boundaries of human knowledge by integrating artistic, scientific, and cross-curricular innovation.“⁴ The idea to exhibit art about science and to corral practitioners from dual disciplines is the brainchild of scientist, and founder of the Bengal Boston Bridge (BBB), Dr. Ujjal Sarkar (Bengal/Boston). Dr. Sarkar invited artist, educator, and curator Todd Bartel (Boston) to bring the exhibition into being during their introductory meeting in May of 2022. That first conversation generated shared affinities and a sense of purpose to bring inkling to physical reality, resulting in a call for science-based art that explores the creative impulse.
A junction between two nerve cells.
The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that a bridging between two neurons or nerve cells is called a “synapse.” The creative leap of mind and the idea of a synapse inspired the naming of this exhibition. But the namesake is also emblematic of a series of planned events and future projects not yet imagined. In this spirit, Unconnected Yet is a catalyst for things yet to be realized.
Unconnected Yet is two exhibitions in one, and the process of selecting the work on view was unusual. We established two teams of curators—one team to choose Indian artists and a second team to select art from an international pool of artists. The local exhibition of Indian art was curated by artist and educator Pradip Maitra and artist and educator Somenath Maity.
As the lead curator for the international exhibition, I invited an ensemble of professionals to co-curate the international show, including Biomimicry designer, and technology innovator Daniela Esponda (Mexico), writer, independent curator, and art director Teri Henderson (Maryland), and artist, educator Talin Megherian (Boston). With additional curators, Unconnected Yet expanded the reach of the call for art, which increased the variety of the voices of the artists ultimately selected.
The international call solicited collage-based art submissions. As a career-long collage-based artist, historian of collage, and curator known for my contributions to the understanding of glue taxonomy, I chose the medium of collage for its democratic, inclusive, ever-expansive, and transformative potential. Collage is the quintessential spark-maker because pairing any two things—related and unrelated—invariably ignites new connections and ideas.
The subjects explored by the collected works in Unconnected Yet include a wide range of sobering topics, not always science-based, but always involve disparate connections. With great fervor, these artists collectively remind us of our current times. We all feel the immensity of the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. If that were not enough to bear, we witness or find, more or less no matter where you live in the world: sexism, racism, classism, supply chain disruption, gun violence—the leading cause of death among children in the U.S.—and political divisiveness and disinformation. The collective weight of humanity’s problems, now legible in the palm of our hands, along with the history of the world, are but a few electronic swipes away. The prospect of sustainability, regarding “modern” ways of living, is bleak and despairing. And yet humanity, on the whole, does not seem to motivate itself to make changes en masse. Gus Speth, former Dean of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies at Yale, puts it this way:
I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address those problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy…and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation—and we scientists don’t know how to do that.⁵
The time for self-interest as a standalone value has come to a crisis in Western culture; our age is one in which we must all think about our environs and our neighbors, and we must do so with great urgency. Unconnected Yet artists use consciousness-raising as a strategy to galvanize their audience. The differing approaches and diverse aesthetics of the work in Unconnected Yet are data showing that humanity needs paradigm shifts—now.
Unconnected Yet is an exhibition about things not fully understood, things unrealized, questions raised, and musings about what-ifs. At its center, Unconnected Yet began by wondering how to connect art with science in a forward-looking way. As described in the international call for art:
Imagine the gap: things to be connected, something to be spanned, a subject to better understand, an unexperienced phenomenon, an unnamed or unseen thing, something that has not yet occurred, or maybe even something unexplainable. Albert Einstein once wrote, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” Art and science often begin with accidents, mistakes, questions, and musings. What would you connect if you could? Imagine the world you want to live in as it yet could be. Unconnected Yet is an exhibition about the junction between things, a call for art that explores any combination of art and science or cross-curricular inquiry.⁶
Only a spark of possibility existed less than a year ago in Ujjal Sarkar’s mind. Today, a loosely formed network of people connects myriad cultures across the globe, all interested in the next thing to imagine and bring into being. We wonder what yet is next—with our assembly of art, ideas, and people from far and wide under the roof of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata, India. At the very least, everyone involved—including all visitors to this exhibition, both online and in person—has entered into a growing, 21st-century neural network. We are a decentralized community of concerned, creative people. We imagine future projects with humanity’s betterment at the core of our group aspiration.