2021 Brain Art Exhibit
Big Data and Me
2020 concluded the first decade of 'Big Data' studies in neuroimaging. Our community has benefited from datasets
collected by the Human Connectome Project, UK Biobank, ADNI, ENIGMA, Psychiatric Genetic Consortium, and others.
With the 2021 Brain Art Exhibition and Competition, we celebrated the achievements of Big Data
neuroimaging projects, while acknowledging the unremitting suffering of individuals affected with brain disorders.
Our contributing artists to explored the theme of translating findings from Big Data studies to the
development of personalized treatments for brain disorders.
Featured artists for the 2021 exhibt were:
Trina Lion
Clara Soto
Rachel Scott
Batool Rizvi
Susan Aldworth
Richard Bright
Alicia Lefebvre
Zsofia Morvay
"Big Data and Me" Axes
One axis of the exhibition examined topics such as inclusivity, diversity, representation of populations,
statistical power and inference in the large datasets.
The second axis explored the personal suffering of individuals affected with brain illnesses such as
schizophrenia, depression, age-related neurodegenerative diseases, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and autism.
We dedicated it to the artistic interpretations of the hope and expectation for recovery.
The third axis (i.e. the space between) hosted the pioneering ideas of linking these levels of observation,
as interpreted by artists who are encouraged to explore the reciprocal effects between Big Data research and
personalized treatment, i.e. breaking of the barrier between research findings and treatment. Aspects of such
exploration may include (a) how an individual is affected by the group to which one belongs and how much we can
predict the characteristics of an individual from group membership. Conversely, how the criteria for inclusion of
individuals into a group define the group as a whole; (b) how Big Data findings will power new diagnostic and
treatment strategies that emphasize the individual variability; (c) artistic interpretations of the mathematical
concepts of ‘many to one mapping’ and ‘scale invariance’ and in particular, how these concepts relate to
neuroscience.