Arts and Health: the Convergence

It was an honor to work with a talented group of amazing artists as their SIGGRAPH 2022 Art Gallery Chair. The SIGGRAPH 2022 Art Gallery Exhibition Arts and Health, the Convergence, featured compelling digital and technologically mediated artworks created over the last two years during the global pandemic. The gallery celebrated creative projects that explore concepts of art and health, push the boundaries of our knowledge, reexamine our bodies and place in the world, advance human abilities, and design today’s and future medical, cultural, and virtual realities.

Since ancient times, people have been interested in the function of our bodies and the work of our minds. Artists and scientists have applied the most advanced technologies of their times in their quest to understand the human body. The history of healthcare is the history of scientific exploration, discovery and innovation. But healthcare is also a visual science, so its history is not complete without the contributions of artists to document human anatomy, surgical procedures and diseases for research and education. From this point of view, the human body and mind unframe a nexus of healthcare and art and offer explorations into two very different domains.

2022. The world has been navigating the COVID-19 pandemic for two years. As humanity was anxiously waiting for a vaccine, medicine became our art, and art became our medicine. Artists applied cutting-edge technologies to create experimental works that promote mental health, fight social and cultural isolation, augment physical well-being, and improve communication over distance with family and friends.

Daria Tsoupikova
SIGGRAPH 2022 Art Gallery Chair

The SIGGRAPH 2022 Art Gallery Exhibition Arts and Health, the Convergence