In an era marked by war, injustice, humane detachment, and hatred, FASE has felt a profound need to seek out connections in the midst of such troubled waters – the bridges that link shores, centers and peripheries, dimensions and universes, human beings, generations, past and future, experience and the unknown. This year, FASE searches for humanity, with its existential questions, its world-changing gestures, and its pursuit of meaning. Not just questions – which, for FASE, remain the ultimate driving force of the world – but answers. Resistance, resilience, solidarity, courage, rediscovery. Borrowing the title of a famous song by Simon & Garfunkel, FASE believes that the only viable response to troubled waters – be they metaphorical, real, or existential – is the construction of a bridge. A passage that, as it is crossed, transforms the life and identity of those walking upon it; a transformation that extends to the artists observing this transition and to the viewers engaging with their work and research.