For the main entrance of the new Karolinska Hospital conference facility, Bigert & Bergström have made a new commissioned work entitled Tip of an Iceberg. The glass cube entrance is embellished with a large, suspended, glowing sculpture whose tip pokes through the ceiling of the glass cube into the open air. The work is in the form of a crystal that resembles an iceberg and appears to be floating in the imaginary waters of the cube.

The concept centers on the primary purpose of the conference center – the exchange of ideas and research. The iceberg represents an idea that has crystalized and whose potential is bursting out of the space. The work also highlights the importance of unconscious mental processes and their impact on creative conceptual work. This has been a key element of the past years’ debate about basic research and to what degree it ought to be controlled. Here the concept “curiosity research” is interesting, as it is about remaining open to unexpected discoveries. Scientific history is littered with paradigm shifts in which coincidences and unconventional methods have led to revolutionary discoveries. Fleming’s discovery of penicillin is a well-known story; in more recent years one can point to Andrei Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, whose “Friday afternoon experiments” led to the discovery of the new material graphene.