Philosopher’s Work Chosen as Art Festival Theme
Artissima, a major Italian international contemporary art fair, has chosen a philosophical theme for its 2022 edition: “transformative experience.”
[still from promotional video for Artissima 2022 by Studio Fionda, directed by Roberto Maria Clemente]
A transformative experience – a concept developed by the American contemporary philosopher Laurie Anne Paul – opens up new horizons to our senses, our thoughts and emotions, to the point of being able to profoundly change us as people. The encounter with art is undoubtedly a transformative and at the same time revealing experience: an intense acceleration towards an unknown but desired future, capable of altering us in cognitive and personal terms, while providing us with new tools for the interpretation of the world.
In recent years the art world as a whole has witnessed changes in its rules, modes of exchange and informative interactions between sector professionals and art lovers, navigating towards multiple horizons of transformation. The year 2022 is the time in which we want to return to choosing transformative experiences that become genuine revelations.
In her book, Transformative Experience, Professor Paul raises and addresses problems arising from the fact that, for some decisions, we lack knowledge that seems necessary for making them rationally, particularly knowledge of how choosing one way or another will affect our own later appraisal of that choice.
Artissima 2022 will take place in Torino beginning on November 4th. You can learn more about it here.
Paul’s work is great, and it was what really got this literature going. But I would hate for people to forget that the pioneering work here by Edna Ullmann-Margalit in “Big Decisions: Opting, Converting, Drifting”. Both Paul’s and Callard’s books on the topic acknowledge this important debt.
Yes, Ullmann-Margalit’s brilliant work focuses on personal transformation (she does not discuss epistemic transformation) and is indeed pioneering. Richard Pettigrew has an excellent discussion of Ullmann-Margalit’s work in his book *Choosing for Changing Selves*. (As it happens, I did not know of her work until I was about to send my 2014 book to press–she did not publish in standard philosophy venues–but when my attention was directed to it I immediately cited it and I have benefited from reading it since.) Another person whose contributions on the topic preceded mine and who should be mentioned is Krister Bykvist.