Cosmic Analogues
DIRTY DOZEN , Campbell Arcade, Melbourne
20TH November – 11TH December 2021
Curated by Penny Walker-Keefe
Cosmic Analogues invites artists to come together and share their passion for cosmology.
Each artist selected for this exhibition reaches to connect with the vastness of the universe through their practice. Artistic processes are analogous to astronaut activities, and artworks are informed by looking backwards in time at space exploration and contemplating its future.
Underneath it all bubbles a deep reverence for the astronomy that has allowed us to understand the universe and our place in it. Artists work to create a common ground between outer space and our relationship to it in everyday life on Earth. Through art we can connect to the cosmos in our own small way.
Featuring Neil Aldum, Roy Ananda, Tom Buckland, Nicholas Capaldo, Stefan Eichhorn (France), Steph Fuller, Project Gemini, Michaela Gleave, Ronnie Van Hout, Clare Humphries and Penny Walker-Keefe.
This exhibition was made possible with the support of The City of Melbourne and Creative Spaces. A big special thank you to Clare Humphries and Sophie Fox for your install excellence.
We would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Bunurong Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation and we pay our respects to their elders, past, present and emerging.
We won’t rely on anyone. We will not make mistakes
The fermi paradox posits a troubling question. Given the immense size of our universe, and the likelihood of intelligent life existing somewhere, why haven’t we met or heard from them? Are alien civilisations just too far away? Has war or over consumption led to their demise? Are they deliberately concealing their presence in a dark cosmic forest? Has their technological supremacy made us irrelevant?
Humans are more than willing to make their presence known. The vacuum of space receives a steady stream of Earth’s stuff - signals, probes, golden records, space junk. If we become an interplanetary species our motivations to colonise the stars will be numerous too. Escaping a planet in peril, defecting for religious or political ambitions, or because our AI minders have ordered the migration. “We won’t rely on anyone. We will not make mistakes” imagines the arrival of cosmic pioneers staking their claim on new, untarnished soil.
