GOING SOUTH- Science Meets Art in Antarctica
The Project The Cosmic Dreamtime Gallery Exhibitions My work as a scientist
A note about sale of original works, limited edition prints, and copying images from this www site.
This project is an exploration of alternative realities. It is an exploration of communicating how a scientist experiences reality to non-scientists through artistic practice. Communicating scientific ideas through art is not new; the artist interacts with the scientist and uses the experience to inform a piece of work. We now attempt a new kind of partnership; the scientist develops as an artist through artistic practice and collaboration with artists, and acts as a conduit for the experienced reality of a group of scientists. Scientists have many ways of seeing the world, different disciplines have different cultures but they all share the landscape of exploration, of living at the margins of what is known, of uncertainty, isolation and risk. Antarctica is the epitome of exploration, the last pristine wilderness, and as such is the perfect visual symbol of the scientific endeavour, at the edge of what we know, beautiful and unforgiving. The act of scientific exploration in Antarctica also epitomizes our ambivalence towards science as a society, whether is it possible to discover, learn and grow without destroying the very thing we wish to understand, ultimately, how the scientific endeavour affects our humanity.
A NESTA Dream Time Fellowship has allowed me to travel with the British Antarctic Survey on a science ship to their base at Rothera, to gather the experience of the place and the science there. This two month journey took place in the Antarctic summer of 2003/4 and was spent working alongside the scientists and engineers, construction workers, pilots and ship's crew, talking to them, making mixed media sketches of the place and of the ideas associated with it, gathering impressions of thought and place. A further 3 months in British summer 2004 is being spent in collaboration with an artist, leading to an installation- The Cosmic Dreamtime- at Warwick and on this www site.
This project would not be possible without the imagination and risk taking of:
who supported my travel to Antarctica
An installation in the Physics Foyer, at the University of Warwick. Two views,
and a collaboration, between Alan Parker (Leverhulme Artist in Residence, 2003/4)
and Sandra Chapman (astrophysicist). The earliest whispers of the Universe
can be heard if we look at microwaves, rather than visible light. In
microwave light we can see back in time to the earliest landscape of the
Universe, before galaxies, before stars, before us. This is the cosmic dreamtime, and in charting it, we explore the lyrical and mathematical templates for the
natural world around us.
Cosmic Dreamtime Universe -concept- Sandra Chapman
Cosmic Dreamtime Man- concept- Alan Parker
watch this space!
The Cosmic Dreamtime, acrylics on 8 ft square canvas