Pale Blue Dot Collective

Barra Culture/
Feeling the Ground

Biographies

About Pale Blue Dot Collective

The Directors of Pale Blue Dot Collective are Louise Beer + John Hooper.

Louise Beer

Louise lived in Aotearoa New Zealand until 2002 before moving to the UK and now works between London, Margate and Aotearoa New Zealand.

Louise Co-Directs four art collectives, Pale Blue Dot Collective, super/collider, Print Science and Lumen.

Using installation, moving image, photography and sound to explore humanity's evolving understanding of Earth’s environments and the cosmos, Louise creates objects and experiences that reflect the incomprehensible nature of reality, from the ocean floor to the night sky.

Louise has exhibited extensively across the UK and internationally. In 2019, Louise was the lead artist on a super/collider x Sail Britain sailing residency which aimed to promote a wider understanding of ocean plastic and in the same year joined the Somewhere Nowhere Residency at the Lake District, on a specially funded place by Dark Skies Cumbria. In 2020, Louise was awarded the BigCi Environmental Art Award in 2020 and a residency at the Arts Centre Christchurch Te Matatiki Toi Ora, Aotearoa New Zealand with her collective, Pale Blue Dot Collective. Louise has recently completed the Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics x Artypical Space Art Summer School 2020 and the Delfina Foundation Science Technology Society UK Associateship which is in association with the Gaia Foundation. Louise was awarded a SECCADs grant in 2020 to contribute to the cost of setting up a new studio, Bright Island Studio, in Thanet. In 2021, Louise has been awarded a DYCP grant from Arts Council England to develop her studio practice and the North York Moors Dark Skies Residency with a solo exhibition in 2022. Louise was nominated to attend the Amant Siena Residency in August 2021, and awarded the year long Spacer Climate Emergency Residency with super/collider. Louise is currently the CreaTures Art/Tech/Nature/Culture Curatorial and Creative Resident for one year.

Within her collectives, Louise has curated over 50 exhibitions and 70 events with overarching focus on astronomy and/or ecology. Louise has collaborated with and curated events and workshops at organisations such as the Science Museum, Bompas and Parr, Greenman Festival, British Science Association, Second Home, the Ace Hotel, Floating Cinema, The Collective, Tate Britain, SALT Festival Norway, Soho House Group, Nablus Festival Israel, Blue Dot Festival, Young and Serious and Vivid Projects, Hebrides Dark Sky Festival and the Turner Contemporary. 

John Hooper
John Hooper is a photographer, film maker, installation and sound artist. John is co-director of Pale Blue Dot Collective, Print Science and is a regular contributor to super/collider. 

John started his photography career shooting editorial for music and lifestyle magazines. John's experience as a photographer and director of photography has led him to collaborate on projects for numerous commissions. He has been using his photography and sound practice to discover the natural world and the vastness above.

For much of his career John has been a successful commercial photographer. Recently making a concerted effort to concentrate on his work as an artist, John has successfully applied for Arts Council England funding to develop his creative practice, completing a short course in Field Recording: Soundscape Composition to further aid his understanding of this subject. He has also been awarded funding from SECCADS enabling him to invest in digital equipment to use for photography and film making. In 2022 he will be accompanying Louise to Australia for the BigCi Environmental Art Award residency in the Blue Mountains. Together with Louise for their Pale Blue Dot Collective, they are working on an exhibition with the Arts Centre Christchurch Te Matatiki Toi Ora, Aotearoa New Zealand, the results of a residency in 2020.

Earth Series

These images were taken by Louise Beer on a self-directed residency in New Zealand in June in 2019. In order to tie Louise’s astronomy based practice with her ecological practice, she decided to pursue a series of landscapes that represent the deep time nature of our planet. Since leaving New Zealand in 2002, Louise has thought about these places continuously. They are the places that inspire her to protect all environments on Earth. These images endeavor to offer a window into largely untouched nature that has risen and fallen for millions and millions of years.

Floating in Space

These images are part of a new series from a residency we recently completed at The Margate School.

Our images examine the parallels between floating in the ocean and Earth moving through our solar system. The work is contemplative in nature, as we investigate the giant landscape of the sea-life and plant-life that lives in Walpole Bay, removing our human-centric scale, to the glittering dark skies of Margate. We invite the viewer to imagine how we fit into our ecosystem and how our ecosystem fits into the cosmos. This work explores the fragile nature of our coastal area and shows the connection between all of us, as we stand and gaze over the horizon, or out towards our galaxy.

Beneath the Moon’s Gaze

The geology of the Lake District has changed monumentally over the past 500 million years. The southern third of the Lake District is made up of rocks such as slate, siltstone and sandstone, which were formed at the bottom of tropical seas ~420 million years ago. The landscape of the Lake District has gone through periods of being dominated by volcanic activity, limestone, sandstones and the Ice Ages.

The abundance of nature in Grizedale Forest led me to think about the formation of life on Earth, which some scientists believe happened within tidal areas 4 billion years ago. At this time, the moon orbited much closer to Earth than it does now which caused huge tides to ebb and flow every few hours.

These tides caused variations in the salinity in coastal areas which may have driven the evolution of early DNA biomolecules. The sounds of the tide, captured on the current British coastline, were recorded in response to my stay in Grizedale. The recording has been slowed down to correspond to the time before Grizedale existed and the area which was to become the Lake District, was under tropical sea.

Bringing the sound of the sea back to Grizedale is an attempt to bring a cosmic perspective to viewing the landscape. Through the ever increasing loss of starlight and dark skies, we are losing our relationship with the universe, and forgetting our place within it. This piece is an attempt to bring focus to the long evolutionary journey of all the local flora and fauna, and the cosmic importance of each strand of life that exists on Earth, in contrast to the darkness of space.

A Memory of Darkness

The Delfina Foundation x Gaia Art Foundation
UK Associateship

Louise Beer

I spent my residency at the Delfina Foundation x Gaia Art Foundation expanding my research into the environmental and philosophical impacts of light pollution, and our disappearing access to natural darkness. I spoke to many scientists, artists and writers about these subjects during this period.

As part of the science_technology_society programme, I created an online listening event called A Memory of Darkness. Audience members were invited to sign up to the event using their address, and were posted a print of my image with instructions on how to access the secret link, and an eye mask to wear during the event. Over 100 people joined from all over the world during the event, and many submitted a response to my submission form about their experience of the night sky after the event.

Event Description
’As the sun sets over the enormous volcanic landscape of the remote Hinewai Reserve in Aotearoa New Zealand, the sky begins to reveal an infinite display of stars and planets, appearing like heavy lights against a pitch-black sky.

As a result of light pollution, many of us across the globe have lost our night-time view of the Milky Way, which can have a philosophical impact on the way we see our ecosystems. When we can no longer look outwards and see our galaxy, we lose a sense of the scale of the emptiness, the expanse of the darkness, and by contrast, the sheer magnificence and fragility of our natural world.

The short live broadcast, A Memory of Darkness, comprises a sonic piece created using field recordings of bird song from Louise’s recent experience at Hinewai Reserve, in her native Aotearoa New Zealand. Alone, looking outwards over the Pacific Ocean, as the warm breeze rustled the native trees nearby and the Rurus (Morepork owls) sang out into the night, the artist experienced overwhelming feelings of both wonderment and environmental grief in equal measure.

The artist invites participants from across the world – who will receive instructions by post – to join her to collectively listen to this new sound piece and recall our own memory of the darkness, considering its significance. The field recordings in this piece were made during Louise’s recent residency at The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora.’

Swaledale, Gunnerside Beck

A moment of contemplation. As the river cuts its way through the dale it passes a recently collapsed river bank. Several trees have made their way down to join the river. Upstream the power of the river amplifies.