Spaces: An exploration of art and memory, with artist Serena Scapagnini
WTI Artist-in-Residence Premiere
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
3:30 - 5:00 pm
100 College Street
Floor 11, Workshop 1116
The Wu Tsai Institute presents the 2025-26 Artist-in-Residence, Serena Scapagnini.
Join us at 100 College Street on November 12 for the premiere event. The engagement will feature a showing of the recent documentary Serena Scapagnini – The Space Beyond (Lo Spazio Oltre) Italy, United States, 2025, 21’, Italian, English. The film will be followed by a curated discussion with Serena, highlighting her approach to artistic creation in collaboration with the scientific community.
Scapagnini will discuss her research and visions for the beginning of the residency program at the Institute, drawing from past and current collaborations with neuroscientists at the Higley Lab and quantum researchers at the Yale Quantum Institute. She will reflect on how scientific interactions enrich her art, taking shape through drawings, paintings, spatial installations, and videos. A site-specific installation of Scapagnini’s work will be on display, and the audience will have ample opportunity to engage directly with the artist.
Scapagnini is hosted by Wu Tsai Faculty Member Mike Higley.
Learn more about WTI’s Artist-in-Residence below and we hope to see you on November 12 for an engaging discussion. Light refreshments will be available. No RSVP is necessary. Please send questions to wti@yale.edu.
About the artist
Serena Scapagnini was born in Rome and graduated from La Sapienza University, Rome with a dissertation in Art Theory, Semiotics and History of Religion (2006). She received her Masters degree in Middle Age Art History, Iconography and Iconology at the University of Siena (2020). Her art education began in Paris (Universitée de Vincennes, Paris VIII, 2005) and continued in New York, where she completed a Master Program in Painting and Mixed Media at the School of Visual Arts (2007).
Scapagnini combines physical and spiritual elements, driven by wonder for the natural rhythm of perception and memory. Her works layer paintings and drawings on paper, combined with multidimensional video and light installations to explore the intricacies of memory—from the human brain to synapses to quantum computing. Integrating artistic and scientific perspectives with the experiences of the observer, Serena Scapagnini aims to reflect a multidisciplinary and multidimensional exploration of vision, perception, memory, and human condition. Her work has been shown and collected internationally in the United States, China, India, Sweden, Hungary, Spain and Italy.
Her recent research focuses on a project dedicated to mind and memory, developed since 2012 in collaboration with Mike Higley, Faculty Member in the Wu Tsai Institute and in the Department of Neuroscience, Yale University. In 2021, she became a Young Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Science. She has been the Artist-in-Residence at the Yale Quantum Institute (2024-25).
Art by Serena Scapagnini
About the residency
The Wu Tsai Institute hosts Serena Scapagnini as the 2025-26 WTI Artist-in-Residence. During the residency, Serena will cultivate exchanges with scientists, students, and staff to blend artistic and scientific perspectives on the intricacies of memory—in the human brain, in biological systems, and in machines. The artist will reflect on the essence of memory in the layered nature of reality through this multidisciplinary and multidimensional exploration of vision, perception, memory, and the human condition. The culmination of these interdisciplinary exchanges and artistic explorations will be a new series of artworks across media including painting and drawing, space installations, and video artworks.