The Collection for the People!: Miroslav Radman on Science, Art and Life

The new cycle of the “Zbirka narodu!” programme at the Motika Gallery begins on September 30 with a guest appearance by Miroslav Radman, one of Croatia’s most distinguished scientists, a molecular biologist and geneticist, and a member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

What connects science and art? Is there order in nature, or do we look for it because we need it? Is balance truly an ideal? Is there a universal measure of beauty? And could it be precisely the error – in biology, science and art – that drives something new?

From the golden ratio, symmetry and chaos to mutation, creativity, intuition and experimentation, the conversation will explore the space where scientific and artistic curiosity meet. Surrounded by the works of Antun Motika, an artist for whom experimentation was a constant creative principle, we will also discuss whether an experiment has to succeed in order to be meaningful, where method ends and imagination begins, and why both scientists and artists continually try to find patterns in what we do not yet understand.

The conversation will conclude with perhaps the oldest questions of all: time, ageing, mortality and meaning. If science enables us to live longer, will we know what to do with that extra time? And if we were immortal, would we still feel the need to create art?

“Zbirka narodu!” opens the Motika Gallery as a place for encounters and dialogue – a space where art is not merely something to be observed, but a starting point for a conversation about the world we live in.