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
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
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