Circling the Sun
Holly Anderson, Trent Crawford, András Cséfalvay, Kalanjay Dhir, Alex Gawronski, Vande Grey, David Haines, Joyce Hinterding, Emma Hamilton, Greg Stanford, David Suyasa, NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory
Curated by Tim Marvin
Firstdraft Curators Program
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Gallery 1
Circling the Sun examines the techniques utilised by artists to capture and visualise the sun. The exhibition will investigate how creative practitioners render the sun by drawing upon a myriad of political, economic, and social frameworks that harness it (solar energy, agriculture), conceptualise it (astrophysics, mathematics), orientate towards it (transmissions, reflections, sun gazing, photography) and squander it (oil drilling, mining, market economies). To elaborate on these concerns means displaying the various intersections of scientific, religious, political, and apocalyptic knowledge that are embedded within the historical, cross-cultural, and aesthetic contexts of the sun presented in this show. Instead of exploring a conventional history or mythology of the sun as merely an analogy of ideal knowledge or primitive creation, this exhibition critically evaluates how artists have utilised multi-disciplinary approaches to explore its diverse effects and conditions.
Forever evading our optical gaze – which is confined to the visible light spectrum – the Sun’s blinding rays must pass through mediating technologies, situations, and artistic techniques in order to be aesthetically visualised. Whether as an antiquated installation, trace, squint, shadow, burn, disaster, poetic, phosphene, or reflection, each artist mobilises a representative substitute of the Sun’s elusive form and effects. Artists in this show will predominantly use scientific and educational models to document aspects of the sun through technical apparatuses – such as the compass, NASA satellite imaging, solar reflectors – and scientific discourses that measure, frame, and evaluate the Sun’s various capacities and how they exceed beyond ocular-centric traditions of perception.
Simultaneously threatening and supporting existence, human economies revolve and organise around the Sun’s ceaseless expenditure. Amidst ongoing ecological and economic crises whose effects are unevenly felt and distributed across the globe, this exhibition positions the Sun within an entanglement of creative relationships between these artists and society more broadly. By networking these artistic practices, Circling the Sun compels a type of contemplation that considers the ancient and enduring presence of the Sun as an equally philosophical, catastrophic, scientific, political, and embodied encounter.
Tim Marvin’s exhibition Circling the Sun powered by Lūpa Media Player. More information at lupaplayer.com
