It is the first time that the CERN & Society Foundation partners with the Fondation Didier et Martine Primat to support two different initiatives, Arts at CERN and TEDxCERN, that have a common denominator, to bring the benefits of the CERN spirit of scientific curiosity to society.
Arts at CERN
The Fondation Didier et Martine Primat and its special fund Odonata join forces with CERN & Society to support Arts at CERN and promote a new series of arts commissions under the overall theme "Arts, Science and Nature". This series aims at encouraging the creation of emblematic art works born by a creative reflection on nature and the dialogue between CERN scientists and artists that have participated in any of the Arts at CERN programmes.
Arts at CERN represents CERN's engagement with the arts since 2011 and is the leading art and science programme promoting the dialogue between artists and particle physicists. At Arts at CERN we pioneer new ways of bringing together artists and scientists, lead the conversation about art and science, and support artistic innovation and openness to research environments. Today, artists from all over the world are invited, through our programmes, to spend time at CERN and work alongside particle physicists and engineers. Positioning artists and scientists together within the larger scientific context, our programmes foster new approaches to research, experimentation and artistic production.
TEDxCERN 2018
The Fondation Didier et Martine Primat also supports the fifth edition of TEDxCERN, which will take place on 20 November in the heart of Geneva. This year’s theme is ‘The Elephant in the Room’, a concept defined as an obvious problem that is being ignored. TEDxCERN 2018, with fourteen speakers and leaders from a wide range of disciplines, will explore the transformative scientific innovation that is impacting the world we live in and offer thought-provoking insights into the hottest topics in science and technology. The aim is to encourage a discussion on how we can tackle the incertitude of humanity’s destiny as a species and address one of the great ‘Elephants in the room’ of our time.
About Fondation Didier et Martine Primat
The Primat Foundation was established in December 2015 as a charitable foundation under Swiss law to support, in Switzerland and abroad, charitable actions in a number of fields, including the promotion and the development of culture, scientific research, and the encouragement of the creative arts. As an integral part of its funds and placed under its aegis, the Primat Foundation manages a special fund named “Odonata”, established in 2016, and whose goal is to support philanthropic initiatives in relation to nature[1].
[1] “Nature” is meant here in the communal expression of the word, under which falls:
The biophysical environment, habitats and natural terrestrial, aquatic or marine environments; Landscapes; Natural "forces" and physical, geological, tectonic, meteorological, biological, evolutionary principles that make up the universe and those that drive ecosystems and the biosphere on Earth; Water, sea, soil and mineral environments; Groups of species, and the individuals and the environments that shelter them: plants (forests ...), animals, including the human species and the human environment and other trophic levels including fungal, bacterial and microbial. Episodic phenomena of nature (crises, glacial cycles / global warming, geological cycles, silvigenetic cycle, natural fires of non-human origin, etc.).