Art and diseases Chair

The Art and Diseases Chair, within the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Universitat Politècnica de València, (Polytechnic University of València, Spain) was created through an agreement between the Polytechnic University of Valencia and AbbVie, which is a multinational biopharmaceutical corporation that has a long term commitment to help communities of people affected by certain diseases.

The objective of this Chair is to make the disease known and raise awareness through art. To that end, a series of projects are developed. These projects establish links between patients and artists to create together art projects displaying the impact of diseases on the daily life of the patients. Thus, the process of art creation becomes a place that invites reflection on the relationship between art and disease. At the same time, certain types of diseases, some of them nearly unknown, gain social visibility.

Unit Experimental has so far had a very active role in the project, developing two interactive applications with augmented reality. They delve in the relationship between art and diseases and they bring to the project the added value of technology as a medium for artistic expression. This way, the applications offer a new outlook on some works of art, in another cases they reveal the process of creation, through interviews, audio pieces and 2D and 3D animations which complete the project with a different, rewarding reading.