Exhibition features photography and multimedia works by acclaimed artists who investigate earthly movements through celestial observation

MAY 20, 2025 (VANCOUVER, CANADA) —The Polygon Gallery presents the major new group exhibition Star Witnesses from June 27–Sept. 28, 2025. The show features a line-up of acclaimed Canadian and international artists whose insightful observations of the cosmos bring new understandings of exploratory and migratory movements on Planet Earth: Daniel Boyd, Vija Celmins, David Horvitz, Bouchra Khalili, Judy Radul, Thomas Ruff, Urban Subjects (Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen, and Helmut Weber), Carrie Mae Weems, and Paul Wong.

“Star Witnesses came together through a gradual, years-long accumulation of energy, experience, and impressions,” says The Polygon’s Audain Chief Curator Monika Szewczyk. “Each artist and collective was invited because they chose astral imagery to relay a fascinating story that struggles to see the light of day. While certain works rely on advanced astronomical technologies, they tend to deepen the mysteries of the cosmos rather than solving them. These artists dare to make imaginative leaps between events lightyears away and the tough stuff of human history.”

The exhibition will feature the most comprehensive presentation of renowned German photographer Thomas Ruff’s work to date in Vancouver — and the first presentation in Canada to feature works from all of his astronomical series. Beyond selections from his signature Sterne (Stars) — which involved recomposing the archive of the ESO/SRC sky atlas created between 1974 and 1987 with the Schmidt telescopic lens at the European Space Observatory (ESO) in the Atacama Desert — the artist’s ongoing fascination with astronomy is traced through works from Nächte (Nights), ma.r.s., and Cassini.

Acclaimed Australian artist Daniel Boyd will make his Canadian debut with History is Made at Night (2011), a two-channel video projection with sound by Ryan Grieve, installed in a black box theatre that simulates the cosmos while confronting the many unknowns of the ever-expanding universe. Boyd’s highly unique aesthetic and approach is informed by his ongoing research into the histories of his Aboriginal ancestors and the impact of colonialism on the earth’s oldest continuous civilization.

Carrie Mae Weems’s The North Star (2022) concentrates years of this preeminent African-American artist’s historical activism and art of remembrance into seven specially framed photographic prints that invoke the story of her grandfather. A union organizer in Arkansas, Frank Weems was terrorized, brutalized and beaten, then left for dead by the side of the road; and yet he managed to escape by following the North Star to Chicago, where a new chapter of his life unfolded.

Protean Vancouver artist Paul Wong will debut Parallel Universes (2025), which was developed with scientists at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Forestry. This Nxylon sculpture will be shown alongside his Full Moon Drawings (2011), 21 photographs indexing the moon’s light as curving, calligraphic marks created by moving the camera during a long exposure; a suite of neons based on these marks installed in one the Gallery’s outdoor mural spaces; and Solstice (2014), a video where 24 hours is condensed into 24 minutes to trace one long day’s movements of people in an alleyway at Main and Hastings.

Thanks to generous institutional and private loans, the exhibition will also feature Latvian-American artist Vija Celmins’ Comet (1991) and Night Sky 3 (2002); American artist David Horvitz’s For Kiyoko (2017); French-Moroccan artist Bouchra Khalili’s The Constellations Series (2011); the Vancouver debut of Canadian artist Judy Radul’s major installation, This is Television (2013), developed during her DAAD residency in Berlin in 2012; and the public art proposal The Stars Above Us (2020) by Austrian-Canadian collective Urban Subjects (Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen, and Helmut Weber).

For more information, visit thepolygon.ca/exhibition/star-witnesses.

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

Opening celebration
Thursday, June 26 at 7pm
Join curator Monika Szewczyk and local artists for the public opening at 7pm, followed by a live performance by Ruby Singh.

Guided tours (available in French, Farsi, Cantonese and Mandarin on request)
Every Saturday at 1:30pm or email tours@thepolygon.ca

Press kit and photos
bit.ly/PolygonStarWitnesses

Press contact
Ines Min
+1 604 440 0791
ines@inesmin.com

Banner image: Paul Wong, Full Moon Drawings (detail), 2011.