January 17 - March 10, 2023

Opening Reception: Thursday, January 26, 4 - 6:30pm (Snow date January 27)

Seeing Truth: Art, Science, Museums, and Making Knowledge seeks to challenge audiences to see art, science, and truth anew in this political moment. 

Truth has always been a slippery idea, but today it seems like “truth” is harder to grasp than ever. In the midst of all the data, all the noise, all the images, how can we find our truth? Where should we go to find the truth? Whose truth should we believe?

These are the questions at the heart of Seeing Truth, an exhibition that considers how science, art, and museums have collided to produce, and sometimes distort, truth and knowledge. The exhibition borrows items from UConn collections, including the Benton Museum; Archives & Special Collections, UConn Library; and Biodiversity Research Collections, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and places them in dialogue with “instigator” objects from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. These objects, including scientific equipment, historic expedition films, and educational dioramas, provoke us to think critically about how knowledge is visually constructed. The exhibition asks us how we know what we do about the universe, our world, and the people that live around the globe. How much of that knowledge—that truth—is art or science? How can we use art and science together to find better truths? 

Seeing Truth is generously supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and curated by Alexis L. Boylan, Director of Academic Affairs, UConn Humanities Institute and Professor of Africana Studies and Art and Art History.

For more information, visit https://futureoftruth.uconn.edu/seeing-truth/.