Jun 15, 2023 | 7 pm | Berlin
An exhibition at the Berlin Museum of Medical History at Charité together with Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn. In cooperation with the Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging, and with the Movement Disorders and Neuromodulation Unit, Director Prof. Andrea Kühn, Department of Neurology with Experimental Neurology at Charité.
Vernissage: 15.06.23, 7 pm
Exhibition: 16.06.23 – 28.01.24
The brain is a mystery. As the central organ of the body, constituting our being and essence, its structures and functions are still not fully understood in many respects. Neuroscience is currently making the greatest research efforts to solve the mysteries of the brain. From this it draws innovative approaches for the diagnosis and therapy of neurological diseases, especially in Berlin, especially at the Charité.

© Charité l Artur Krutsch
The exhibition The Brain in Science and Art raises the curtain. It presents a walk behind the scenes to everyone who is interested. It reveals just how detailed the map of the brain can now be drawn, where perception, feeling, memory and thinking are located, how the individual regions of the brain are networked to form higher functional units and which targeted medical support is on offer today when brain functions are impaired by age, illness or accident.
But the exhibition also intentionally widens the view. It asks questions about the I and the self and how we place ourselves in the world and connect with it. And it purposely engages with artistic positions in outstanding works that interpret the brain as a surface for projecting humanity in all its dimensions in a highly knowledgeable, creative and subjective way. The exhibition is structured around five core questions:
– What is inside my head?
– How do I envision the processes of the brain?
– Are my body and I the same thing?
– What do I make of the world?
– What understanding of neural networks is currently being developed in medicine?
The exhibition was originally conceived and realized in 2022 for the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn with the significant collaboration of neuroscientists from the Charité. The Berlin presentation is been thematically adapted and – as a special focus – includes an additional presentation of current research, diagnosis and treatment approaches at the Charité. In this respect, the exhibition builds upon the central figure of thought of the “neural networks” that are extremely finely spun in the brain. With a view to these networks, the Charité’s neuroscientific focus is divided into five central questions: how can neural networks be measured and visualized? How do they work? How do they develop and what can go wrong? How can they be medically influenced? How can medicine help when neural networks are disrupted?
At individual exhibition stations, neuroscientific researchers at the Charité provide insights into their current fields of action. Among other things, they are concerned with modern imaging, mind reading, brain simulation and brain stimulation, brain-PC interfaces, movement disorders, addiction and stroke and – as a particular challenge – autoimmunity, Alzheimer’s, and dementia. It becomes clear that – similar to the brain itself – research on the brain at the Charité constitutes a network. Intensively linked locally, it also reaches far beyond Berlin. It is organized in working groups and large research associations, collaborative research centres and Clusters of Excellence.
As part of the reopening of the Berlin Medical History Museum of the Charité, the exhibition will be on display in the newly restored museum building from 16 June, 2023. In doing so, the Charité is focusing attention upon an extraordinarily dynamic medical field – the neurosciences – which it has cultivated to a high degree of proficiency in recent years and where significant developments will take place in the near future.
The Brain in Science and Art. An exhibition of the Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité and the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, in cooperation with the Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging and the Section Movement Disorders and Neuromodulation of the Clinic for Neurology at the Charité.
Text from BMM website.
