Ōtehīwai Mt. John Observatory, Aotearoa New Zealand

Late last year I was included on a Rubin Observatory (Chile) grant as a co-investigator to research the feasibility of creating an artists residency at University of Canterbury Ōtehīwai Mt. John Observatory in Takapō, Aotearoa New Zealand. This project is in collaboration with planetary astronomer Dr Michele Bannister and Dark Sky Project and includes the development of resources to incorporate Māori astronomical science into a first-year undergraduate astronomy course.

After the Pale Blue Dot Collective residency in the Blue Mountains, Australia, we headed to the South Island of Aotearoa to start my research trip at the university and at Mount John Observatory. We stayed at the observatory for about a week and it was incredible. After not being sure if we would be able to get through on the roads, we arrived to find Takapō completely covered in snow. The observatory sits at 1029m above an electric blue glacial lake.

We had a real adventure exploring the observatory and landscape around it, located in the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, the largest gold standard International Dark Sky Reserve in the world. Around every corner was a view more beautiful than the last. The constantly changing weather brought snow storms, strong winds and extensive and severe flooding across the South Island. At night time, the snow covered landscape gave way to some of the most beautiful skies I have ever seen.

For the past six months I have been interviewing artists about their experiences of observatory based residencies. If you would like to share any feedback you have - please send me a message and we can arrange a time to chat.

Art + Air Exhibition

Since early 2022 I have been working on a project for Art + Air, and exhibition of collaborative artworks by artists and scientists presented at the Dunedin Community Gallery in Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand.

My piece ‘Revolving through the Megacosm’ will be displayed at this gallery, and also at the Gigacube at the Dunedin Public Library.

I worked with scientist Geoff Wyvil on this piece which you can watch here. The publication is also digitally available on the same page.

Pale Blue Dot Collective/ Last verse

I am really pleased to share the film made by John Hooper and myself during our BigCi Environmental Art Award Residency 2022. You can watch the film here.

Last verse is a dual screen film made using footage and sound recorded in and around BigCi and up to Blackheath in the Blue Mountains of Australia. The film depicts two temporalities. Firstly from the perspective of a non-human animal and secondly, a cosmic time frame.

Are we cosmically insignificant, or cosmically significant?

As we zoom out further, we might think that nothing we do matters, eventually Earth will be absorbed into the sun, and no trace of our world will exist. But what about the fact that there is no other world just like ours, no other world with kangaroos, skinks or gang-gang cockatoos. It has taken our world 13.7 billion years of the universe existing, beginning with an extraordinary start, billions of years of star formation, the gathering dust, the cooling of our rocky world and the formation of our oceans and atmosphere to develop into our home. All of these processes have helped the eucalyptus trees to grow into homes for insects, animals and birds, have helped the pergolas to form, have helped our brains to develop in such a way that we can look out at the pinpricks of light in the sky and through research, understand that they are unfathomably old and unfathomably large spheres of gas. 

It took a vast period of time for our universe to form into the one we see around us. After Earth is gone, time will exist for an immeasurable period, with life unlikely anywhere in the cosmos. 

Pale Blue Dot Collective/ Artists Talk

During our BigCi Environmental Art Award Residency, we recorded an artists talk which explores both of our practices and our new project, Last verse.

Watch the talk below.

BigCi environmental art award residency initial reflections

From mid June until mid July John Hooper and I were doing our BigCi Environmental Art Award at BigCi in the Blue Mountains in Australia. It was one of the most important things I have ever done. The mental processing of experiencing a forest so damaged by wildfires was significant. Noticing the missing bird populations was a sobering experience.

After the first two weeks of blue skies and clear nights, the rain started to pour torrentially and didn’t stop for over a week. This rain saturated the ground, flooded rivers and homes and other buildings around the area. We were lucky to not have water in our accommodation, but many local bridges were closed for days as the water and trees rushed over them, causing chaos as it went. It was heartbreaking to hear the stories of the local people on the news saying that this was the third or forth flood within a year to destroy the ground floor of their homes. My thoughts also went to the flora and fauna of the forest, who had somehow come back after the fires, to face the flooding rain. 

I am still processing what a confronting experience it was - I feel completely changed by it. I am so incredibly grateful to Rae and Yuri Bolotin of BigCi for offering us this unique experience, an opportunity to see with our own eyes what these impacts of the climate crisis look like. The work they do through this residency must have a massive, global impact. 

John and I have made a film which we will be sharing soon. I will also be sharing more images and experiences from the residency over the next couple of months via social media.

Photo by John Hooper.

Pale Blue Dot Collective/ BigCi Residency, Blue Mountains, Australia

We are very pleased to share that we will be in residence at BigCi Australia for our postponed BigCi Environmental Art Award Residency 2020, from mid June to mid July this year. We will be based in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales.

During our residency, we will be exploring the environmental challenges that the Wollemi National Park has faced and will face in the future. This award offers an opportunity to share the complexity of the irreplaceable ecosystem of the National Park, utilising the expert knowledge of BigCi and to draw attention to the fragility of this rich and diverse ecosystem by employing a cosmic perspective. 

From a distance, we have been overwhelmed by the recent ecological crises in Australia and will create an immersive sound and visual experience that invites international audiences to create a meaningful connection to the individual life forms that dwell in the Wollemi National Park. Through video, photography and sound recording, we will create a time capsule of a moment in history that seems to be a tipping point in the human created deterioration of millions of years of successful evolution. 

We will photograph and film the night sky, the flora and fauna and landscapes. Using field recordings, we will create a complex narrative sound piece that echoes the sounds of the Blue Mountains. Through presenting the area with a deep time perspective, we will invite viewers to consider the incomprehensible value of the ecosystems of fire and flood endangered areas of Australia.

BigCi - Bilpin international ground for Creative initiatives

‘BigCi is an independent, artist run, not for profit artist residency program focusing on artists’ professional development and facilitating their projects.

BigCi has been established and run by Rae Bolotin, a practicing artist, and Yuri Bolotin, environmentalist and wilderness explorer.

Because of our location on the edge of Wollemi National Park within the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Greater Blue Mountains and the knowledge base of our team, many of our resident artists are particularly interested in projects that explore environmental or ecological issues, although many others use our beautiful natural surroundings as a source of creativity for a variety of different artistic pursuits.

All residents have opportunities to take part in bush walks conducted by Yuri Bolotin, an experienced mountain guide and author, and to learn first hand about the unique natural environment of the area.

Artists-in-residence are able to present their work during a BigCi Open Day that usually takes place at the end of their stay.’

*We are conscious of the air travel to do this project and have considered it a lot. We believe that the work that we produce during the Australian residency will be disseminated to a wide audience in the UK/ internationally, and will help to highlight the climate events that are happening in the Blue Mountains, from our own perspective, living on an island with differing environmental issues.

Images are from Google Earth of Blue Mountains, Australia.

Pale Blue Dot Collective/ Visual Research Centre Presents Encounters with the Urban Night Conference

Pale Blue Dot Collective will display the film Under the Fading Light at the Encounters with the Urban Night Conference at the National Museum of Estonia in Tartu, Estonia, followed by a Q&A.

he two-day conference is hosted by the Estonian National Museum and open to the public. The conference is organised around a combined schedule of panels and screenings to stimulate discussions which engage with the themes of alterity, identity, transformation and sensoriality in the context of the nocturnal. The conference will expand upon the residency theme by exploring further the many ways of encountering, perceiving, representing and reformulating the alterity and threshold-crossing character of the dark hours, as well as the special identity-giving forces and phenomenological elements of alterity within the urban environment, as conceived by an array of researchers and creative practitioners.

More info here.

Grand Union x UoB MA Art History & Curating Students/ The Age of Dreamers is Over

PV 3 June 2022
Exhibition Open 3 June – 25 June 2022

I am really pleased to share that my piece ‘A Memory of Darkness’ will be displayed as part of The Age of Dreamers is Over as an installation.

In collaboration with Grand Union, the MA Art History and Curating course at University of Birmingham presents The Age of Dreamers is Over: a group show navigating the historical scales of anthropogenic* rupture, as well as the potential for collective healing.

This immersive exhibition brings together interactive sculpture, sound, and light works from artists Louise Beer, Jack Lewdjaw, and Mina Heydari-Waite. Unified by the idea of the night and darkness as a site of creative energy and potential growth, the three artists included in this exhibition have examined forms of rupture from the climate crisis; to revolution and colonialism; to the decay of the English high street. Reflecting upon the notion of ruination and rebuilding, The Age of Dreamers is Over serves to explore the impact of human hands on one another and on the very world we live in – if we have the capacity to destroy then we can also attempt to mend and create.

*Anthropogenic: originating in human activity.

Grand Union
19 Minerva Works
Fazeley Street
Birmingham
B5 5RS

Read more about the exhibition here.

super/collider/ Curating Climate Commission

super/collider has been commissioned by Signal Film and Media and Grizedale Forest for their Arts Council England funded Curating Climate Project, in the Lake District.

The project includes working with a group of participants to explore their experiences of forest spaces as well as researching the different histories of Grizedale Forest and how it is being managed in the face of the climate crisis. We will be taking several trips to the Forest to work with the participants, with the resulting artworks being exhibited later in the summer at Grizedale Forest.

Arts Council England/ Developing Your Creative Practice Grant

I have recently completed my Arts Council England DYCP grant which I was awarded in December 2020. When I applied I had no idea just how transformative it could or would be. It has allowed me the time and space to consider lots of parts of my practice, to refine my processes and ideas, and to review where my focus lies. My grant enabled me to develop my photographic and installation work, creating two new processes within my practice. I have been challenged and supported by my two amazing mentors, Ellen Mara De Wachter and Amy Budd.

My grant didn't happen in isolation of course. I was able to go on several incredible residencies including Amant Siena, North York Moors National Park Trust Dark Skies Residency and to begin my on going CreaTures Art/ Tech/ Nature/ Culture Residency as well as working on different commissions which all fed into this development. I shall be forever grateful to Arts Council England for this grant and to the Delfina Foundation for introducing me to my mentors.

This image titled ‘Eternally spinning through darkness’ of my series 'Earth as a Planetary Landscape' which was developed during my Amant Siena Residency and with the guidance of my DYCP mentors.

Yorkshire Life/ The Glory of the Night Skies

Journalist Amanda Brown interviewed me about my solo exhibition Dark Reflections, which is open until 03 April. In the interview, I discussed where my interest in the night sky began and what inspired the works in my exhibition.

Solo Exhibition/ Dark Reflections

Open 19 February - 3 April
Private View 18 February 6PM
Meet the Artist 19 February 11AM + 1.15PM

Dark Reflections/
Inspired by… Gallery, North York Moors National Park

Through this exhibition, I invite the audience to share their reflections on our relationship with the night sky, and how it frames how we perceive the climate crisis. How does looking into our galaxy change your thinking about the deep time history of our planet, in which the flora and fauna around us has developed over billions of years?

During my residency I spent time in the landscape recording the sounds of the environment with different types of microphones and used digital cameras and a 5 x 4 camera to photograph it. I experienced a new type of landscape, and imagined how it has changed over Earth’s history. 

Having access to dark skies helps to shape my thinking about the incredibly old age of our planet. Whilst looking out into the night I think about how each day passed with a sunset and a sunrise for billions of years before human eyes ever perceived the myriad of colours on display. When we think of long periods of geologic history, it is hard to imagine the passing of individual days and nights as we know them.

My sound and photographic installation titled Ascending explores the formation and development of our landscapes inviting the viewer to shift their thinking from ‘landscape to planet’. Audience members are asked to contribute to my piece Thinking Through the Night, by taking an envelope home with them, containing a postcard and a set of instructions for sharing their thoughts about our view of the night sky, and then posting it back to the gallery where it will be displayed next to my work.

Read more here.

Jean Harrison Commission

I was really pleased to be selected for the Jean Harrison Commission at the The Museum of North Craven Life at The Folly in Settle, North Yorkshire. Jean was a Settle-based poet and author who died in 2020 and her extensive contemporary poetry library is now housed at The Folly.

Jean's work spanned many themes from sci-fi and dystopia, to families, place and space. Her work explored what it means to be a person in a changing environment, whether that environment is a far-flung distant future, a small town in the Yorkshire Dales or Ghana where Jean worked as a teacher for much of her life.

The commission is funded by Arts Council England. I will create a new work in response to some of Jean's writing for display later this year.

Pale Blue Dot Collective - Harmonic Islands Exhibition

I am thrilled to share Pale Blue Dot Collectives upcoming exhibition at the Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora, in Christchurch Aotearoa New Zealand. The exhibition is open from 17 - 30 January 2022.

‘Through sound, we journey back to ancient Aotearoa, to imagine the forests before they were ever seen by human eyes. As we move from the water to the forest, pushing through dense vegetation, we encounter mysterious sounds eluding to species that are no longer part of our landscape. Through a deep-time perspective, we invite you into a new way of seeing the familiar species that we share our world with and explore the cosmic importance of our habitats.

Pale Blue Dot Collective is the collective name of Louise Beer and John Hooper. Louise spent several weeks in residence on behalf of the collective in September 2020. During the residency, Louise travelled around the Ōtautahi Christchurch area and spent time field recording and photographing the forests and landscapes. The artists worked across oceans to develop this work whilst separated by pandemic restrictions.

Together, the artists endeavour to bring a new perspective about the detrimental impact of the climate crisis, not only to humanity but to all life and all environments. Framing the impact through the eyes of evolution and the immense time period it has taken for each form of life to arrive at this point, they create a space for discussion around the damage we are collectively participating in and its universal impact.

Louise lived in Ōtepoti Dunedin before moving to the UK as a teenager. John was born in Preston, UK, and they live and work in Margate, UK.’

Find out more here.

Auckland University of Technology/ The World of Light Exhibition

Under the Fading Light has been selected for the Auckland University of Technology The World of Light Exhibition. The exhibition is currently online until next year when it will move to a physical space, due to Covid restrictions.

The World of Light (2021) is a forum for creative expressions, understandings and enlightenment across design, science, Māori and indigenous development, education, art, creative technologies and transdisciplinary research. Hosted by Auckland University of Technology in association with Artweek Auckland 2021.

The other wonderful artists in the exhibition are:

Alex Billingham
Aurelie Crisetig
Ayshia Taskin & Daniele Bongiovanni
Bharati Kapadia
Bob Bicknell-Knight
Carol Sowden
Caroline Areskog Jones
David Anthony Sant
David Ian Bickley
Hye Rim Lee
Jonathan Armour
Kate Aries
Nicola Rae
Robert Jarvis
Shahar Tuchner
Yula Kim

Visit the exhibition here.

CreaTures ATNC Curatorial and Creative Residency

I am so incredibly excited to share that I will be the new Art Tech Nature Culture Resident for their year long Curatorial and Creative Residency from this September.

’Art Tech Nature Culture (ATNC) is a global community of practice which explores the creative possibilities of ecological regeneration. In precarious times, how can we build new ways forward that challenge the inequalities of the status quo? Our ways of addressing this and our backgrounds are diverse, but we are united by a shared interest in using creative practices (e.g. arts, design, culture, hacking, research, activism) to explore alternative futures that rethink, rebuild and heal." There are currently around 300 members.

I will be working with the members from all over the world to create an exciting programme of discussions, workshops and events that explore the threads that run through our environmental practices.

This residency is funded by the CreaTures project which is affiliated with 11 partners, including the University of Sussex, Aalto University, RMIT University, Utrecht University, Zemos98, Sniffer, Superflux, Kersnikova, Hellon, Furtherfield, OKFI. The CreaTures project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

Find out more about CreaTures here and the ATNC here.

Amant Siena Reflections

Whilst I was on the Amant Siena Residency in Tuscany, Italy, I spent some time with a wonderful astronomer called Alessandro Marchini after attending his night sky event, ‘Stelle in Musica’ at Vitaleta Chapel. The event included live music, to ‘open us up to see the stars’ before being guided around the night sky with some very impressive lasers. Later, we looked through the telescopes and saw Saturn and Jupiter and it’s moons. It was fascinating seeing the other artists and Amant curators experiencing seeing these planets, some for the first time. We talked about our passion for natural darkness and the implication of light pollution and satellites on his research.

A couple of weeks later I went to visit Alessandro at the Università degli Studi di Siena where he is based. Alessandro is the director of the university’s Astronomical Observatory and he has published more than 100 papers regarding his research about asteroids, variable stars, extrasolar planets and optical monitoring of blazars. For his commitment to the popularisation of Astronomy, he has been honoured by having an asteroid (55196 Marchini) named after him.

The first time that I visited Alessandro in Siena, we took this magnificent picture of the moon from the observatory above us, at around midday. Because of the intense sunlight, it was not possible to get it 100% sharp. It was incredible to open the observatory to see the historic buildings of Siena and photograph the moon surrounded by darkness. It is definitely my favourite photograph of the moon.

Above and Below – Ancient Materials: Virtual Arts-Science Residency

Pale Blue Dot Collective will be presenting a talk for 'Above and Below – Ancient Materials: Virtual Arts-Science Residency' by Mayes Creative and Royal Astronomical Society ✨ The online residency runs from 11 – 15 Oct 2021. You can apply via CuratorSpace

'Framing the Universe

Pale Blue Dot Collective will present a series of works that explore the world around us, from the coastline of Margate to the endless skies of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Through their shared practice, the artists endeavour to bring a new perspective about the detrimental impact of the climate crisis, not only to humanity but to all life and all environments. Framing the impact through the eyes of evolution and the immense time period it has taken for each form of life to arrive at this point, the artists want to create a space for discussion around the damage we are collectively participating in and its universal impact.

The duo have been commissioned by Bodleian Library x Fusion Arts, Oxford, Ramsgate Festival of Sound, Ramsgate, Nablus Festival, Palestine and are creating a sound based exhibition for the Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2022, the artists will take residence at BigCi in the Blue Mountains, Australia, as the Environmental Award 2020 winners. Earlier this year the artists took part in the Margate School: Art, Society, Nature: Photography Residency 2021, Margate.'

Find out more here.

Meeting of the Waters: Locative Media Oceania

I am really thrilled to have been selected for an online creative and educational programme called 'Meeting of the Waters: Locative Media Oceania' which will run from 18 September to 4 October. The course is hosted by the Centre of Applied Water Science at the @University of Canberra in Australia.

The programme is an online creative and educational program exploring the themes of water, climate change, cultural connections to place, ecosystems health and deep time. I will learn how to use locative media technologies and other collaborative tools to codesign projects concentrating these themes. There are 36 participants in total from across the world, and together we will develop location based artworks about the Oceania region. The themes focus on a shared concern and the need to act for the restoration of ecosystems, living with climate change, plus the impacts of forced migration and the loss of biodiversity.

There is an incredible list of speakers, including Tracey M Benson, Tyson Yunkaporta, Lisa Roberts, Sandy Sur, Michelle Maloney, Andrew Constable, Kate Genevieve @chroma.space , Nola Turner-Jenson, Desna Whaanga-Schollum, Leah Barclay, Brendan Kennedy, Lee Joachim, Bruce Shillingsworth, Josiah Jordan, Nina Czegledy, Pasha Ian Clothier and Trudy Lane.

This image was taken at an expansive beach called Birdlings Flat, looking out at the Pacific Ocean on the Banks Peninsula in Aotearoa New Zealand. I took the image almost a year ago, whilst on a Pale Blue Dot Collective residency at The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand

Read more about the programme here.

Birdlings Flat, Aotearoa New Zealand

North York Moors Dark Sky Residency with Solo Exhibition

I am overjoyed to be able to share that earlier this year I was selected for the North York Moors Dark Sky Residency with a solo exhibition at Inspired by… gallery, located at The Moors National Park Centre at Danby. The exhibition space is absolutely beautiful. My solo exhibition will take place in 2022.

Just before I came to Italy I began my residency on the Moors. I have never encountered this type of landscape before - here is a 5x4 photograph of one of the many incredible vistas.

I am going to be expanding on my research into the philosophical and ecological importance of natural darkness in a new project titled 'Dark Reflections'. To begin my research for the residency, I met with Mike Hawtin who helped the North York Moors to become an International Dark Sky Reserve, and Richard Darn, their dark skies consultant, supporter and professional astronomer.

‘I will further my research into how natural darkness impacts our perception of the fragility of nature and how it can inspire positive environmental change. I will create a body of work using photography, installation, sound and a participatory element.

My practice has been fundamentally inspired by the change in my relationship with the night sky. I lived in Aotearoa New Zealand for 16 years, before moving to London. In NZ, I spent a lot of time in mountainous areas close to a dark sky reserve which opened a window into the magnificence and fragility of our environment, in contrast to the endless cosmic landscape. 

I believe that as light pollution increases across the world, we will spin further into an exponential spiral of decline due to not having this visual contrast. It is fantastic news that the North York Moors has received a Dark Sky Park accolade. It is a very important moment to explore why protecting natural darkness is imperative to the psychology of the climate crisis.

My research will have two strands. The first aspect will be the philosophical impact of natural darkness, and the rise of light pollution. The second will be in depth research into the biological impacts of light pollution on the flora and fauna of the North York Moors.’