Science, Art, and the Search for Meaning: Opening Conversation with Dario Robleto

Opening conversation of Block Museum exhibition, “The Heart’s Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto”

For Dario Robleto, the practice of art shares a key aspiration with scientific endeavor: both the artist and the scientist strive to increase the sensitivity of their observations. In her contribution to The Heart’s Knowledge catalogue, Dr. Jennifer Roberts (Professor of the Humanities, American and Contemporary Art, Harvard University) writes that “the act of measurement cannot be separated from the search for meaning.” What are the tools that artists and scientists use to observe and measure our world? How might we use those tools to construct new pathways of human understanding across time and distance? How might shared values of empathy, care, and curiosity guide such pursuits?

In this opening conversation, Robleto and Roberts will be joined by Lucianne Walkowicz, astronomer and the co-founder of the JustSpace Alliance, and Michael Metzger, Pick-Laudati Curator of Media Arts and curator of The Heart’s Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto, to reflect on these questions. Join us for a discussion that reaches across boundaries to examine the shared pursuit of greater understanding that binds artists and scientists.

Drop by The Block early and join the Block Museum Student Associates in the galleries for a look at the exhibition.