Eternal Sunshine of the Colorful Mind: Pipilotti Rist in Qatar

The National Museum of Qatar inaugurated the exhibition "Your Brain to Me, My Brain to You", the first exhibition in the Middle East by the famous Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist.

The opening was attended by Minister of Higher Education Buthaina bint Ali Al-Jabr Al-Nuaimi, CEO of Qatar Museums Ahmed Musa Al-Namla, and  Sheikha Amna bint Abdulaziz bin Jassim Al-Thani, Executive Vice President for Museum Affairs and Director of Qatar National Museum.

The exhibition is being held at the Qatar National Museum in partnership with the Ministry of Public Health and Hamad Medical Corporation.

A key feature of the exhibition is the pixelated 12,000 LED lights that are hung on electrical connections throughout the exhibition hall through which visitors pass.

The extensive and influential audio-visual exhibition joins the list of exhibitions organized by the National Museum of Qatar, which are consistent with the distinctive dimensions of the museum's galleries.

This exhibition, which will be held from March 20 to December 20, will be open to hundreds of thousands of visitors expected to attend the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.

The exhibition, which is curated by Tom Eccles, Advisor for Museum Affairs at Qatar Museums, and Buthaina El-Beltagy, Head of Exhibitions Department at the National Museum of Qatar, invites its visitors to embark on a journey in which they discover themselves, through an experience that moves their senses, leads them to meditate and puts them in a state of astonishment and wonder. It also symbolizes the collective unconscious of mankind and the capacity of the human mind.

Photo: Ali Al Anssari, courtesy of Qatar Museums ©2022

The exhibition, which was commissioned by the Qatar National Museum, demonstrates the museum's commitment to engaging the most distinguished artists from all over the world with local audiences, and providing support for the work of distinguished artists, The exhibition highlights a room for self-discovery that allows museum-goers to harmonize with Qatar's past, present and future.

The exhibition highlights the museum’s commitment to raising awareness about mental health issues as a cornerstone of human well-being, which is in line with the mental health campaign “Are you okay?”, organized by the healthcare sector in Qatar and supports the goals of the partnership between the Ministry of Public Health and WHO Global Health, FIFA and the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, which aim to make the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 an opportunity to promote physical and mental health and a model for health and safety to be challenged by major sporting events in the future

It is noteworthy that Pipilotti Rist (born in 1962), is an expert in the visual interaction of large-scale audio-visual artwork and profound messages about humanity.

Rist works with a team of specialists and has been cooperating for years with some members of this team, Kaori Kobara is a Zurich-based lighting designer, lead and designer of the "My Mind As You See It, Your Mind As I See It" project, and developed the prototype and technical concept for this work. It also supervises the programming, production, and installation process. The Zurich studio is run by Nikki Dreyer and Dave Lange, and the video is produced by a team including Daniel Kochler-Flores and Victoria Holdt.