Featured Artists: Nicole Stott (artist + astronaut), Sheila Pinkel, Forest Stearns, Nina Waisman, Memo Akten, Sara Schnadt, Rachelle Reichert, Cara Levine, Yoko Shimizu, Elena Soterakis, Isabel Beavers, Janna Avner, Christina Ondrus, Ben Vance, Robert Simmon, Charles Sommer, James P. Scott, Richelle Gribble, Stan Kazanjian, Jeff Gipe, Tiare Ribeaux, Alan Chin, MoonArk (team) , and Beyond Earth (artist collective).
A Message to Space is a multimedia exhibition bringing diverse space themed artworks to Los Angeles. Demonstrating an interdisciplinary history, experience, and phenomenology of aerospace studies, the exhibition presents the Space Art DNA Time Capsule , an art project that will store crowdsourced drawings and messages on synthetic DNA and then rocket the DNA to outer space in 2023. For this project, the gallery will provide drawing materials for guests to submit works during the opening.
The exhibition also presents perspective-shifting artworks by Nina Waisman, Director of the Laboratory for Embodied Intelligences and recent exhibitor at the Hammer Museum. Musical performance by harpist and singer Zeraphina Quenby, featuring celestial songs and a live cover performance of Space Oddit y by David Bowie. Affiliated institutions include Carnegie Mellon Institute, NASA, BioBat Art Space, Planet Labs, SciArt Exchange, and Beyond Earth.
The exhibition will display unique space artifacts, such as an original artwork created by NASA astronaut Nicole Stott, made while orbiting above Earth within the International Space Station, as well as The Golden Record (replica) a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk , portraying sounds and images, overseen by Carl Sagen and carried to space on NASA’s Voyager. The record’s audio recordings will be playing throughout the exhibition.
A Message to Space brings to public awareness notable art and science projects interacting with and exploring outer space. Artworks etched onto satellites, artworks created by astronauts, artifacts that have flown to space and back, and pumpkin seeds flown in low Earth orbit— these works convey that the pursuit to understand life on earth and beyond is not so distinct from the artist’s quest to understand life’s meaning.
Danielle Siembieda, Managing Director of LEONARDO, The International Society for the Arts, Science, and Technology describes SUPERCOLLIDER, an all-female, artist-run gallery project space, founded by artist Richelle Gribble with curatorial advising and executional support of artist Janna Avner, as “a critical cultural space for the arty-scientist, technocurious, ‘is-that-really-art?’ artists, and those that bowl out of their lane.”
The exhibition includes a colorfully designed astronaut spacesuit worn from space created by The Space Art Foundation as part of a series of spacesuits which were designed by artist Ian Cion and built by ILC Dover from the artwork by children in hospitals, refugee centers, and schools in over 45 countries. Several of these spacesuits have flown to the International Space Station.
A Message to Space also includes a virtual reality work , Irrational Exuberance , by Ben Vance, which transports viewers to outer space. The exhibition is provided through the culmination of scientist and research collaborators Robert Simmon, Lead Data Visualizer, Planet Labs; Sasha Samochina, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, Space + AR/VR Specialist; Yaniv Elrich, My Heritage, DNA Data Storage Pioneer; Beth Tuck, Genspace, DNA Specialist & Educator and others.
A Message to Space highlights the artist and astronaut relationship from low earth orbit, bringing scientists, space philosophers, technologists and artists together in one dialogue. Select space-art objects in the exhibition include: MoonArk , a highly collaborative and massively integrated project to be sent to the Moon initiated by Carnegie Mellon University; Our Humanity, a linocut print by artist Richelle Gribble made for spaceflight aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard’s Space System; The Great Migration , ink drawing by Forest Stearns laser etched on satellite side panels of Planet Labs satellites; Space Art DNA Time Capsule , a crowdsourced drawing project facilitated by Beyond Earth to send to space; Pioneer Plaque (replica), a gold-anodized aluminum plaque co-created by Carl Sagen, Frank Drake, and Linda Salzman Sagen featuring a pictorial message on spacecrafts; Pioneer 10 and 11 intended for intelligent extraterrestrial life.
In addition to the collection of artworks, SUPERCOLLIDER presents Space Art DNA Time Capsule, serving as the outer space Pioneer Plaque of the 21st Century. The capsule contains hundreds of crowd-sourced drawings created by individuals from around the world. These drawings will then be encoded onto synthetic DNA and sent to outer space.
