Join us on Thursday, June 26 for the Star Witnesses Opening Celebration.

Doors at 7:00pm

Remarks 7:30pm

Followed by a live performance by Ruby Singh

RSVPs are helpful

Star Witnesses is on view at The Polygon June 27 – September 28.

About the Exhibition
Star Witnesses assembles works by a constellation of artists whose insightful observations of the cosmos bring new understandings of exploratory and migratory movements on Planet Earth. The artists involved present fragments of found and newly produced photographic evidence showing planets, moons, constellations in distant galaxies, and the light of our closest star – the Sun – to address earthly concerns.

The title alludes to the artists’ precise visions – honed at the technical limits of photography – and to how encounters with their artworks may transform audiences into ‘star witnesses’ in turn. Certain works in the exhibition evolve in close dialogue with scientific imaging, while others go beyond or deviate from the focus of telescopic cameras, the logic of astronomy, and the path of satellites. Together, they attest to the fact that there is no universal way of gazing at the universe.

Each work offers the image of the cosmos as material evidence for a distinctive perspective, worldview, or imaginary.  They give substance to vital histories, which struggle to see the proverbial light of day: one woman’s survival in an internment camp; one man’s narrow escape from a white mob; underexposed connections between a war in the Middle East and peace in a mid-sized German town; an artist’s moment of grace on top of a moonlit mountain, far from home.

Questions of POV are paramount: much depends on where on Earth we – the humans, the stardust – were born and where we have travelled, migrated, settled recently, or remained for generations, if not millennia. Dark matter abounds. And this too is evidence awaiting fresh interpretations.

Curated by Monika Szewczyk, Audain Chief Curator

Generously supported by:
Jeffrey Boone and David Wong
Brigitte and Henning Freybe
Michael and Inna O’Brian Family Foundation
Paula Palyga and David Demers
Andy Sylvester
Terrence and Lisa Turner
Bruno Wall

Banner Image: Daniel Boyd, History is Made at Night, installation view, 2013. Photo: Zan Wimberley. Courtesy of the artist, Carriageworks, and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.