Saliency
Saliency A cross-disciplinary exploration on memory and salience, with artist Serena Scapagnini Learn More DAte June 4, 2026 Hour 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm Event Location Yale University – Wu Tsai Institute 100 College Street, Floor 11 Lounge All news
Saliency
Saliency La memoria cangiante High Resolution Conceived in dialogue with members of the scientific community at the Wu Tsai Institute, Saliency brings together reflections that bridge art, psychology, and neuroscience. The work is realized in mixed media on paper with a backlit installation and treats memory as a field where perception, identity, and matter intertwine.The plasticity of the mind and the selective process of memory retrieval are central to the work. Through delicate drawings, it delves into memory and saliency, the perceptual mechanism through which certain elements emerge while others recede. The blue wave is inspired by a coronal section of the brain and by the folds of the hippocampus, developed through imaging contributions and cross-disciplinary dialogue. Floating images seem to emerge from the very matter of the artwork, as if a textured surface of traces were giving birth to them; a pareidolia bridging thought and the world. In Saliency, images are imperfect and potentially mutable, much like the mind and its traces. The work suggests how living cells and their paths are in constant change, and how science, in observing memory, mirrors processes that are ultimately familiar to art: dream is retrieval; art is retrieval just as dream is retrieval. Year 2026 Medium Mixed media on paper and acrylic. Private Collection at Wu Tsai Institute – Yale University All projects
Installation
Installation High Resolution Does this girl see forms everywhere? Does she dream about forms? Well yes: I envy this fantasy.I would drag my rocking chair into her paper forest,I would stay there seated for a while,then I would start swinging. Miklós Jancsó Year 2012 Medium Oil, charcoal, mirror, china ink, quartz stones and sound waves on paper7 elements Size Variable All projects
Superposition – The Space Beyond
Superposition THE SPACE BEYOND https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dowgJQAa6-0 The Space Beyond – Superposition Nicola Campiotti, Italy, United States, 2025, 9’, English, Italian subtitles This video is an excerpt from the full documentary The Space Beyond. This chapter was supported by the Yale Quantum Institute. As the recipient of the Yale Quantum Institute AiR Program, Serena Scapagnini documented her collaborative work with quantum physicists in the creation of Superposition, a series of floating installations presented at Yale University. Superposition features three site-specific installations conceived by Serena Scapagnini in collaboration with YQI researchers during her year-long residency. This triptych reflects the artist’s ongoing research into the nature of memory, intertwined with reflections on quantum memory, exploring the internal structures of nature itself. Deeply inspired by natural forms and growth patterns, the work expands organically from one location to the next, echoing the logic of the Fibonacci sequence. Inspired by Schrödinger’s cat states, the project highlights the quantum phenomenon of superposition — where particles or light can exist in multiple states simultaneously, such as occupying two positions or moving with two distinct momenta at once. These states generate intricate interference patterns, hallmarks of quantum mechanics, which Serena’s work visually evokes. The installations also explore how such patterns are altered through interaction with the surrounding environment. View all
Synapses – The Space Between
Synapses The Space Between https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cnQtA3aNS4 The Space Between Marco Foschiani, Italy, United States, 2023, 7’, English, Italian subtitles Serena Scapagnini, visual artist and art historian, in conversation with Michael Higley, neuroscientist at the Yale School of Medicine. A dialogue tracing more than a decade of collaboration, exploring the intersection of art and neuroscience through brain imagery, artistic works, and shared reflections. The conversation reveals how scientific research and artistic practice can converge, transforming invisible processes of the mind into visual and experiential forms. View All
Synapses – The Shape Of Thoughts
Synapses The Shape Of Thoughts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meAXCrPUz10&t=956s The Shape of thoughts Yale University, United States, 2024, 44’, English, Italian subtitles Since 2013, Serena Scapagnini has collaborated with Professor Michael Higley, neuroscientist at the Yale School of Medicine, on SYNAPSES, a project dedicated to the exploration of the mind. Using fluorescent neuroimaging techniques to visualize neurons, her media works define an interior landscape, tracing the flow of neurons like tributaries of a river, connecting through synapses to form the shapes of our thoughts. Serena Scapagnini and Michael Higley were in conversation, moderated by Florian Carle, Director of the Yale Quantum Institute, exploring their collaboration and shared research through ten years of brain imagery, reflections, and works of art. View All
Symmetries
Symmetries https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRxMBBph0pU Symmetries Raffaele Rossi, Italy, United States, 2024, 1’, English, Italian subtitles Serena Scapagnini’s artistic practice explores the relationship between physical and spiritual dimensions, shaped by a sense of wonder toward the rhythms of perception, memory formation, and dissolution. Scientific collaboration forms an integral part of her research, including Synapses, developed in collaboration with Professor Michael Higley at the Yale School of Medicine. This short film, directed by Raffaele Rossi, traces the dialogue between neuroscience and artistic practice at the core of the project. With special thanks to Mario Codognato; Studio Trisorio, Naples; Pio Monte della Misericordia; the Yale Quantum Institute; and the Higley Lab, Department of Neuroscience, Yale University. View all
Superposition
Superposition High Resolution Superposition is a gold-plated copper plate engraved with a “pure” state of light. By engraving this pure state—drawing on quantum superposition probability patterns—Serena seeks to capture the perfect instant in which quantum information is as intended, at the edge of its natural dissolution. The artwork gives its title to the larger project, Superposition, an ongoing collaboration with the Yale Quantum Institute, presented in a series of shows in 2025 at Yale University. For that occasion, the project took the form of a triptych of site-specific installations conceived by Serena Scapagnini during her year-long residency at the Yale Quantum Institute. The triptych presents Serena’s research on the nature of memory, integrated with reflections on quantum memory, and engages with the internal structure of nature itself. Year 2025 Medium Gold-plated copper engraving Superposition of Light Encoding Quantum Memory Size 18 x 26 cm Credits Yale Quantum Institute All projects
State of light
State of light High Resolution State of Light is a permanent installation at the Yale Quantum Institute, inspired by Schrödinger’s cat states. It highlights the quantum phenomenon of superposition—where particles can exist in multiple states simultaneously, such as being in different positions or having distinct momenta at once. Superposition gives rise to intricate interference patterns, which Serena draws in their ideal equilibrium before exploring how these patterns fade through interactions with the environment, and how information, once lost, remains physically encoded in the rest of the universe. Thanks to software developed in collaboration with researchers at the Yale Quantum Institute, and through dialogue with Sterling Professor of Physics and Applied Physics Steven Girvin and Harshvardhan Babla, a PhD researcher in Applied Physics at Yale University, Serena worked on the quantum states of light used to encode information. The panels of paper are arranged following superposition patterns, as a physical three-dimensional representation of a state of light, evoking infinite possibilities before wavefunction collapse. DAte 2025 Medium 20 elements. Mixed media on paper and aluminum Credits Yale Quantum InstitutePublic Collection at YQI, New Haven All projects
Refractions
Refractions High Resolution Refractions is a site-specific installation conceived by Serena Scapagnini in collaboration with quantum researchers during the AiR Program at the Yale Quantum Institute. The work explores quantum memory using states of light. Each of the six suspended handmade papers, created in Fabriano, Italy, encapsulates a thin copper plate engraved with a quantum state. Similar to a quantum device, where the information is not accessible to the researcher without the collapse of the state, these states are not visible without a destructive process. “Everything has physical storage, even memory,” Scapagnini said. “Refractions is a work on the edge between different densities—from the more physical to the more rarefied ones—to evoke remembering visions on the edge of their natural dissolution.” The work has been presented in the atrium space of the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library at Yale University. It is part of the triptych Superposition, a series of floating installations presented at Yale in June 2025. DAte 2025 Media 10 elements. Mixed media on paper and copper Size Variable. Single element: 97 × 47 cm Credits Yale Quantum Institute All projects