Bioethics Made Personal

Bioethics Made Personal:  An Interview with UNESCO Chair Global Art Competition Board Member on the Artistic and Ethical Significance of the Exhibit

An interview with Hallie Moore by Michael Baggot

What is the value of the UNESCO Chair Global Art Exhibit?

This exhibit offers the viewer insights into accomplished artists’ capacity to make visible such abstractions as “vulnerability.” We are creatures who with our five senses understand the objective world. We can see, smell, feel, hear, taste the sensory world. But the abstract concepts that this exhibit highlights: respect for the vulnerable, concern for the ethics of life, these are difficult ideas. Such an exhibit as this one, puts a face on these abstractions. We see the aged, the ill, the impoverished and forgotten, and we are moved to offer compassion.

What role does art play in bioethical and human rights issues?

Art makes visible what man may struggle to understand. The Visual Arts make concrete and –in the case of many of these images — personal what may have merely been a vague notion before. “Lorenzo” stares out at the viewer from his hospital bed and maze of machinery and tubes. He comes into our minds and hearts; his suffering becomes real.

lorenzo

What inspired your involvement in the competition?

I am a perfect example of the typical art museum attendee. I wandered through these images… originally over 200 hundred of them… glancing here, glancing there, trying very hard to understand what the theme meant to me. It was not until our Board had sifted through the submissions and we had talked and talked about why this image reflected the theme of vulnerability and this one did not, that I began to understand and appreciate the intention of this competition to open viewers’ eyes. Seeing the image of “Olga” stretching her arm out as if it were a stranger to her, captured me. I was part of her dementia and felt empathy. Involvement in this competition has schooled me in “respect for the vulnerable” and I have been gifted with its knowledge.

Could you summarize your contribution to the realization of the competition?

My title is best described as corresponding secretary. I informed each artist that their submission had been received and later informed them of their status in the on-going judging. Each member of the Board supported the entire process, whether it was processing the submissions, seeking donations to the competition, encouraging the young musicians who created the original composition for the exhibit, preparing food for the first exhibit, or acting as a sounding board for the documentary. We were all multi-tasking.

Do you think that the artistic community needs a deeper awareness of and appreciation for bioethical and human rights issues?

That is hard to say. I think bioethics and human rights is a topic that all thoughtful people need to address. As the planet shrinks, as communication with each other becomes more immediate, as our capacity for speeding ahead in technology increases, all of us, artists and non-artist alike, are called to wrestle with these ethical issues regarding bioethics and human rights. Our claim to humanity calls us to reflect on what is just.

Do you think that those involved in bioethics and the promotion of human rights have a need for a deeper appreciation of art?

Art is another language and this language crosses all boundaries and borders. It is a broad highway that doctors, philosophers, politicians, clergy, and the layman can travel. The journey may lead to a deeper appreciation.

What advice would you give artists seeking to explore bioethical/human rights issues in their work?

Find their source of compassion. What person, event, image evokes their deepest concern for humanity? Is it a child in need, a homeless person sleeping in a doorway, a frightened man in a clinic waiting room? Find the provocative moment and find a way to share that.

What events, projects or developments do you foresee arising from the Global Art Exhibit?

This exhibit will be share with the Bioethics and Human Rights Conference in Rome this month. It will return to Texas for two additional exhibitions. The website (www.bioethicsart.org) will continue to instruct and encourage viewers to look into the heart of this issue of bioethics and human rights. Who knows who will be inspired to act, either through art or some other means to offer one’s talent to mankind’s ethical progress.

Signing of an International Code of Ethics

In accordance with the mission of creating an appropriate framework to guide the implementation of ethical principles, Professor Alberto Garcia, Director of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights with its headquarter in Rome, Italy, has signed a document that guarantees an International Code of Ethics.This statement was taken up by two leading European research centers in adult stem cells: ITERA and ITERM. Both ITERM (Institute of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine) and ITERA (International Tissue Engineering Research Association) have proposed this international Code of Ethics for all institutions that are part of those agencies. This Code is in line with the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights of UNESCO (2006).

The signatories are ITERA’s President, Prof.  Albert  Ramon and Prof. Thomas Otto of ITERM.

Two events commemorated this signing.  The first event was held at the InterContinental Hotel in Düsseldorf (Germany) on November 19.  Mr. Thomas Nickel, deputy Mayor of the city of Neuss (Germany) which houses the Headquarters of ITERM witnessed the signing ceremony.

The second event took place two days later during the 5th Workshop of ITERA at the Kasteel Vaeshartelt in Maastricht (The Netherlands). In both sessions, Prof. Alberto Garcia spoke about social and ethical perspectives on the promises and dilemmas of regenerative medicine in legal context.

Firma2_reducida

Professor Albert Ramon displays the recently signed Code of Ethics

The Beauty of Respect for the Vulnerable

 UNESCO Chair Director awards mother for heroic embodiment of respect for vulnerable life at Rome art foundation event

Alberto Garcia, Director of the UNESCO Chair of Bioethics and Human Rights, presented an award to Maria Grazia, loving mother of a daughter in vegetative state, for her heroic testimony of respect for vulnerable human life at the recent Fondazione Marianna event in Rome, Italy November 2012.

Garcia spoke of Maria Grazia has embodied article 8 of UNESCO´s Universal Declaration of Human Rights through her sacrificial devotion to her daughter Maria Angela, whose vegetative state has demanded full-time attention for more than 16 years.  On behalf of the UNESCO Chair, Garcia recognized that respect for the vulnerable is not a mere abstract concept, but rather a life-changing value that Maria Grazia´s example challenges each of us to incarnate in our daily actions.

An audience of nearly 200 persons joined a renowned panel of artistic, municipal, and intellectual leaders in the Eternal City to celebrate Maria Grazia´s witness and welcome the foundation´s 15th annual calendar (click here to view the calendars).

The calendar, rich in art and meditative text, reflects the foundation´s dedication to the promotion of human rights through the arts.  Pinuccia Pitti, president of the group, has gained a reputation in Rome for thought-provoking artistic works diverse in their expression, yet unified in their treatment of the dignity of the human person.  Visit here for more information on the foundation.

Garcia highlighted the shared mission of the UNESCO Chair and the Fodazione Marianna to promote the union of ethical thought and artistic creativity.  He noted the inseparable relation between the good and the beautiful.  Our own experience reveals that we commonly refer to ethically wrong acts not only as evil, but as ugly and ethically right acts not only as good, but as beautiful.  Artists have the noble missions of communicating this profound relation between the ethical and aesthetic through the universal language art.

The UNESCO Chair´s promotion of human dignity through art will again be showcased in the 2013 Global Art Competition, following the success of the first competition one year ago (click here for more information).  The 2011 Global Art Competition featured 225 submissions from 23 countries and was unveiled in the UN General Assembly Hall of New York, before being displayed in Rome, Italy and Houston, Texas.

2011 INS And SfN Neurobioethics Group Poster Presentation

Four posters whose authors are among the members of our Neurobioethics Group have been presented at the International Neuroethics Society (INS) Annual Meeting, Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington DC, November 10th -11th. One of them, regarding the activities (present and future) of our group was also presented at the Society for Neuroscience, Convention Center, Novembre 12th-16th. Two of the posters presented at the INS were particularly appreciated; their respective abstracts will be published in the Journal of Bioethics – Neuroscience (2012).

The title and authors of the abstracts are shown below (the posters’ abstracts that will be published are indicated by an asterix):

*1) NEUROSCIENCE NEWS JOURNALISM IN ITALY: WHEN ETHICAL STANDARDS MAKE THE DIFFERENCE by Pensieri C., Cavallotto A. and Gini A.

*2) HOW THE CRIMINAL  “SHAPES” THE CRIME : A NEUROCOGNITIVE MODEL FOR PSYCHIATRIC FORENSIC EVALUATION by Casartelli L., Gini A., Baertschi B.

3) RACING FOR (NEUROCOGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT) : WHEN THE TRUE HUMAN PERSON IS AT THE STARTING BLOCKS by Gini  A, Farisco M. and  Benanti P.

4) THE ITALIAN NEUROBIOETHICS STUDY AND RESEARCH GROUP: PRESENT AND FUTURE OF THE NEUROSCIENCES FROM A PERSONALISTIC APPROACH by Gini A. and Benanti P.

www.neuroethicssociety.org