Anna Gray • Aria Kiani • Becky Lyon • Chad Stayrook • David Lunt • David O'Malley • Diego Ruben Brambilla • Douglas Clark • Dovilė Dagienė DoDA • Elizabeth Jordan • Eva Rudlinger • Hanna Mattes • Hannah Pratt • Hannah Scott • Harry Gammer-Flitcroft • Heather Merkle• Helen McGhie • Hondartza Fraga • Jane Millar • Joe Patrick Shellard • John Timberlake • Kristina Puljekova • Ky Lewis • Leah Stewart• Lianne Milward • Light Society • Liz Orton • Louise Beer & John Hooper • Luke Harby • Maria Luigia Gioffrè • Maria Macc • Mario Abela • Natasha Sabatini • Neil Shirreff • Nettie Edwards • Paul Hill • Plex Noir • Rebecca Huxley & Tom Cowell • Rob Olins & Douglas Benford • Rose Mengmei Zhou • Rowan Eastwood • Silvia De Giorgi • Sisetta Zappone • Steve Bennett • Susan Eyre • Tim Corne • William Fraser • Yambe Tam
Cosmic Perspectives Lumen presented 52 interdisciplinary artists exploring the fragility and monumental importance of life on Earth from the darkness of space, and how concepts such as the Overview Effect alter collective perception of ecology. Through the exhibition, Lumen invited participants to create a new conversation around climate change, and the overall damage and destruction we are causing to our environments. The exhibition aimed to inspire a change of thinking through highlighting the precarious nature of life, and the extraordinary set of circumstances that allow us to exist, in an otherwise, possibly, lifeless universe.
Alongside the exhibition there was a programme of events including a talk with Public Astronomer of Royal Observatory Greenwich Marek Kukula and film screenings curated by KOSMICA.
You can see a film of our 2017 exhibition Lumen: School of Light here.
Venue Ugly Duck, 49 Tanner St, London SE1 3PL. Exhibition Timings Friday 25 May, Private View 6pm - 9pm, with performance from Look Mum No Computer Saturday 26 May, 11am - 6pm Sunday 27 May, 11am - 6pm
Events 26 May, 1pm - Carl Grinter // Cosmic Perspectives Workshop This workshop seeks to re-conceptualise the way you may approach and orientate yourself to space through an analytic of movement to reconsider how we really relate to objects, entities and other people. The workshop asks you to bring a small object that is meaningful for you to consider in the workshop. Animation film-maker Carl Grinter seeks to take you away from your Earthly boundaries through a mediated journey that will allow you to reconsider your domestic relationship with things through the meaning you create in being-at-home-in-the-world through the intimacies we create with things, re-interpreting our relations in a different way through making-practices. The workshop promises surprise, new ways of understanding our world and hopefully inspiration for the future through an engaging and thought-provoking exploration of the way we interpret the every day.
About Carl Grinter
Carl Grinter is an animation, visual effects and immersive media designer, producer and supervisor working and developing his practice in the London film network since 1987. His practice is embedded in animation. 27 May, 12pm - Marek Kukula // The Intimate Universe Our familiar surroundings are full of astronomical connections: everything from the water in your taps, your holiday suntan to the vagaries of the British weather all have their origins far out in space. Even our own bodies are made from material forged in the hearts of long-dead stars. Marek Kukula will show that to properly understand our living planet we need to explore the wider universe of which it is an integral part.
About Marek Kukula
Marek Kukula is the Public Astronomer at Royal Museums Greenwich, home of the Royal Observatory Greenwich and the Queen’s House art gallery. In 2015, Marek and Dr Melanie Vandenbrouck curated the exhibition “dark frame/deep field” at Breese Little Gallery to coincide with the New Horizons probe’s fly-by of Pluto. Media-partnered by super/collider, the exhibition showcased a number of works by contemporary artists alongside vintage NASA photographs, highlighting our ongoing desire to explore and map the cosmos.
27 May, 3pm - KOSMICA Film Afternoon Cosmic Perspectives presents KOSMICA Film, an afternoon of video art that will take us closer to outer space. Through a series of curated artworks we will present a kaleidoscope of approaches to explore outer space.
The evening will be divided in two different thematic sections. The first one examines gravity and weightlessness through space missions, the body and DIY experiments. The second block will show artworks that use poetics to reflect on space and our connection with the universe.
About KOSMICA
KOSMICA is a global institute founded in 2011 with the mission to establish a platform for critical, cultural and poetic discourse on our relationship with outer space and the impact of space activities here on Earth. The Institute develops initiatives that bridge art and humanities, the space sector and wider society. We explore the cultural impact of space exploration as well as thinking about the future of humanity and addressing the most urgent issues we are currently facing on Earth. KOSMICA was ifirst presented in 2011 by Arts Catalyst.
Follow: @KOSMICAinstitute
Zine
The Gutter Press made a wonderful zine for the exhibition, that you can see here.