Pale Blue Dot have been included in the exhibition ‘To the Moon and Back: Artists Exploring Outer Space’ at Mirror Gallery, Reading.

Exhibition dates: Sun 12 May – Sun 9 June 2019 (Free)
Breakfast Preview: Sun 12 May at 10:30 am (Free)

On 20th July 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on the surface of the moon. Fifty years later Armstrong’s “one small step … one giant leap” still stirs hearts. The fascination with and exploitation of outer space has initiated numerous discussions even before Apollo 11. In 1967 these resulted in the ‘Outer Space Treaty’, formally the ‘Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies,’ which has been currently signed by 108 countries.

Having as its reference the 50th moon landing anniversary of Apollo 11 ‘To the moon and back’ is a group exhibition that examines how eight artists approach and think about/around outer space. Artworks using different media -video, photography, animation, printmaking, and installation- illuminate different ways of being inspired by the aesthetics of outer space as a means to question its reality and our human existence within it. Through their arrangement, they reveal how artists might be observing and harvesting the energy of our known universe for their creative processes. In so doing, these works raise questions about the performativity of making art and the thresholds between truth and imagination. Ultimately, the exhibition attempts to reflect upon Jean Baudrillard’s condition of simulacra, ‘It is the reflection of a profound reality; It masks and denatures a profound reality; It masks the absence of a profound reality; It has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum’ (1994: 6).

Participating artists: Lewis Andrews, Steve Barritt, Nadim Chaufi, Sarah Edmondson, Simon Gregory, Claire Scherzinger, Mita Solanky, Pale Blue Dot.