Watching the Sun
Virtual Arts Science Residency with Mayes Creative in association with the Royal Astronomical Society
30th November - 4th December 2020
In a year filled with lockdowns and social distancing, this residency made use of internet technologies to bring twenty one artists working in different disciplines from Cornwall to the Shetlands together online for a week of talks, workshops and collaborative opportunities. The week began with a penumbral lunar eclipse just after sunrise on the morning of the 30th November, and included talks on the nature of stars, archeoastronomy, a virtual tour of the Royal Astronomical Society library archives and presentations from artists working in the areas of astronomy, dark skies and collaborative practice exploring the arts and sciences. Activities included ‘Measuring the Universe’, creative provocations and break out group presentations on the subjects explored.
More information on the residency, details of the artists and speakers who took part and the virtual sketchbook of work produced throughout the week can be found on the Mayes Creative website here.
Plasma
This residency was a wonderful opportunity to connect with other artists throughout the United Kingdom and explore different ways of making work. Inspired by the creative provocations put forward by the other participants and in response to the talks and discussions throughout the residency I found myself fascinated by the solar cycle, the flipping of the Suns’ magnetic field and potential for the Sun to create flares so powerful during its active phase they could penetrate the protection of the Earth’s magnetic field, causing significant disruption to the technologies that we depend upon so completely in our daily lives. The Sun’s upper atmosphere constantly releases streams of charged particles into space and the termination of this stellar wind beyond the Kuiper Belt marks the boundary between the edge of our solar system and interstellar space. Experimenting with cyanotypes to explore these ideas seemed appropriate as the reactive chemicals used to coat the paper in this process are formed in the explosive energy of a supernova, and the image is exposed directly using only the light from our closest star.
Cyanotype of a Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram - a tool used to study populations of stars and their evolution. This one is taken from the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite, showing more than four million stars within five thousand light years from the Sun, plotted using information about their brightness, colour and distance.
The outcome from this residency was a curated folio of work featuring all the artists that took participated, published by Mayes Creative in May 2021, to be housed in the Royal Astronomical Society Library.
Flare
Comet
Magnetic Field