New NeuroArt Gala 2022

This year 17 schools from around Catalonia participated in this edition with 32 differents artworks.

The past 15th March, we organized the 2022 NeuroArt Gala at the CCCB. It was a very expected event as after two years we could hold a face-to-face Gala where the students could present their artworks in front of the jury

The exhibition began with our presenter Jose Pérez-Ocaña explaining how the gala will evolve. Then Susana Arias, (Mediation’s manager of CCCB), Cristina Maragall (President of Fundació Pascual Maragall), and Jordi Alberch (UBneuro’s director) welcomed all the audience.

Schools were divided in two groups: Dendrites and Axons. The first ones began defending their artworks in front of the jury at the Hall of the CCCB, while the others participated in a Cine-forum debate. This Cine-forum consisted in visualizing short films provided by the Brain Film Festival on themes about mental health, afterwards they did an opened discussion with researchers from our Institute where the students could talk about their doubts and concerns. When both finished they changed their positions.

The jury included Guadalupe Soria (UBneuro researcher and Professor of the Faculty of Medicine), Miguel Burgaleta (Psychologist and expert in neuroimaging) and Manuel Aramendia (Professor of the Fine Arts Faculty of UB and vice dean of Culture and Equipment). The speakers of the debate at Cine-forum were Alba Ortega, José Valenzuela and Esther Pérez.

During the jury’s deliberation, “Madame Châtelet I les seves seguidores d’Instagram” performed a staged reading about women scientist of the history.

The winners and the prizes of this editions were:

• Most creative and original:
  • “Déjà-vu” from Col·legi Sant Josep. They won a detachable brain and a visit at the CosmoCaixa

• Best scientific concept:
  • “El túnel de les emocions” from Escola Pia Granollers. They won a detachable cranium with a detachable brain and a visit with talk at CCCB

• Best oral presentation:
  • “La percepció emocional de la vida” from Col·legi Jesús Maria Claudina. Their prize was a detachable Brain and a visit with talk at the Fundació Pascual Maragall

• Most voted artwork:
  • “Qui sóc?” from Escola Canigó. They won a Oculus Quest for the school.

You can check all the videos of the artworks of this year in our Youtube channel.

You can see all the photos of the Gala in this link.

We want to thank you all the volunteers, to help in the organisation of this event. We also want to thank the CCCB, the Pascual Maragall Fundation, La Caixa Foundation and the Brain Film Fest to sponsor the NeuroArt Gala of this year.

The project

NeuroArt is a science communication project organised by the Institute of Neurosciences. This project was created to strengthen the relationship between art and science. These two disciplines are two ways to understand, observe and describe the world. Nowadays there is a need to work from a multidisciplinary approach to keep pushing the frontiers of knowledge. That’s why we started up this project.

In this project, schools in Catalonia work on neuroscientific concepts through the creation of artistic works, creating a new and strong knowledge innovative. It is unbelievable what they achieve once we remove the division between disciplines.