Exhibition/ Beyond Measure - Expanding the Sky

It is very exciting to share that John and I have been included in this wonderful exhibition curated by Dr Anna Madeleine Raupach.

'Beyond Measure: Expanding the Sky' Canberra Museum and Gallery in Canberra, Australia.

Beyond Measure features:
Grayson Cooke
Louise Beer
Pale Blue Dot Collective - Louise Beer + John Hooper
Yvette Hamilton
Tom Buckland
U.K. Frederick

'Beyond Measure invites us to broaden our understanding and perceptions of what we considered as ‘outer space’. While reaching to time and space beyond the human realm, astronomy is entwined with processes, methodologies, and technologies of and from the Earth.
This exhibition presents multimedia artworks that creatively engages with satellite data, photographic history, lunar exploration, atmospheric systems, time and light - and repositions Earthly phenomena of geology, biota, observation, mapping, and technology as inexplicable from what we consider beyond this world.

Tracing yet diverging from the practices that define astronomy, the artists in Beyond Measure offer alternative perspectives on our relationship with space that in turn shapes how we inhabit the world here and now.'

Invitation image by U.K. Frederick.

Find out more here.

Earth Photo 2024/ Sidney Nolan Trust Residency Prize

We are so excited to discover that we have been awarded the Sidney Nolan Trust Residency Prize for our film Last Verse, which we entered into the Earth Photo 2024 open call. We will be working with the Sidney Nolan Trust over the next year, and can’t wait to stay in the Jacobean house called The Rodd, and spend time in the surround landscapes and environments. Thank you so much to Forestry England, the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) and Parker Harris. 

Sidney Nolan Trust Residency Prize
Founded by the famous Australian modernist Sir Sidney Nolan, the Sidney Nolan Trust is delighted to offer a new residency prize to a UK based practitioner. The two-week residency at Nolan’s former home The Rodd will offer unique access to the artist’s important photographic archives and will be awarded for internationally relevant storytelling and innovation.

Our film was developed during our BigCi Environmental Art Award Residency which we did in 2022, in the Blue Mountains in Australia. Watch the film here.

Read more about Earth Photo here and the Sidney Nolan Trust here.

Fermynwoods Contemporary Art/ Podcast

We have collaborated with Fermywoods Contemporary Art to create a podcast. Listen here.

‘The first episode of our Love + Light season of the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Podcast presents Of Immeasurable Consequence by Pale Blue Dot Collective.

Pale Blue Dot Collective (artists Louise Beer and John Hooper) spent four months in residence with Fermynwoods to create Of Immeasurable Consequence – originally an immersive photographic and sound based installation installed in All Saint Church, Aldwincle, from 24th March to 7th April 2024.

In this version of Of Immeasurable Consequence, which has been adapted to include parts of recorded conversation, Pale Blue Dot Collective examine our place within the universe, framing the impact of the climate emergency through the eyes of evolution and the immense time period it has taken for each form of life to arrive at this point.’

Earth Photo 2024 Shortlist

We are delighted to share that ‘Last verse’ by Pale Blue Dot Collective has been selected for the ‘Final Earth Photo 2024 Shortlist’ in the moving image section. We loved making this film during our BigCi Australia 2022 Environmental Art Award Residency (awarded in 2020).

‘Each year, Earth Photo invites photographers and filmmakers from around the world to enter images and/or short films. With a high-profile jury of industry experts we will be inviting submissions from image makers based worldwide who have a compelling story to share about the environment, about nature, about people, forests, the landscape and the varied impacts of climate change.

Out of over 1900 entries, a judging panel made up of experts from the fields of photography, film, geography and environment selected the Earth Photo 2024 shortlist: 112 Images and 13 videos by photographers and film makers from around the world.

Earth Photo 2024 selected shortlisted works will on show at the Royal Geographical Society, London, from 18 June 2024. A selection of shortlisted photos will be shown on a national tour to Forestry England sites: Moors Valley Country Park and Forest , Bedgebury National Pinetum and Forest, Dalby Forest, Haldon Forest Park, Fineshade Wood, Grizedale Forest, Sidney Nolan Trust, Herefordshire, The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall.’

Read more here.

Fermynwoods Contemporary Art

Of Immeasurable Consequence

We are over the moon to reveal a project that we have been working on for the last four months. We have been in residence with Fermynwoods Contemporary Art to create ‘Of Immeasurable Consequence’, an immersive photographic and sound based installation that will be installed in All Saints Church, Aldwincle from Sunday 24th March until Sunday 7th April 2024.

Underneath the dark skies above, and through our human eyes, we observe the light of galaxies and stars, ancient light falling softly on our retinas. In the darkness, animals rustle through fallen leaves, waves crash around the coastlines of vast land masses, and tectonic plates grind and shift the lithosphere. Insects make their homes in narrow crevices, and great aquatic creatures meander through deep blue seas. In the darkness of the forest, one owl calls to another as star light reflects from the Moon onto the heaving trees below. In the great expansive darkness, Jupiter’s gravity catches occasional Earthly bound comets and the Moon pulls the oceans creating tides. 

To be in the presence of this life, from the depths of the oceans to the upper atmospheric winds, is the consequence of a 13.8 billion year concatenation of events.

Through the darkness we can begin to see the cosmic significance of life on Earth.

‘Please join us for a launch event from 6:30pm on Saturday 23rd March, featuring insight into the work by Louise Beer and John Hooper and an informal, interactive telescope viewing with an astronomer. The event is free, however please register your place from the link below.

The artists use installation, film, photography and sound to examine our place within the universe, framing the impact of the climate emergency through the eyes of evolution and the immense time period it has taken for each form of life to arrive at this point.

Funded by Northamptonshire Community Foundation's Creative Climate Action Fund, the work combines images, sound and light to transport the viewer to an imagined forest environment. With the artists' interest in the deep time nature of our existence on the planet, they have developed an installation that explores both the fragility and the miraculous nature of life on Earth.

Sound recordings from Fermyn Woods, made with a variety of homemade and professional microphones, are combined with their own archive of field recordings collected from around the world. The final composition transports the audience to a forest outside of our experience. Images taken under moonlight during their residency are installed in the central body of the church, juxtaposed with astronomical imagery that prompts us to consider our own place in the wider Cosmos.’

* In the event of bad weather, the astronomer will deliver a talk inside the church.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/of-immeasurable-consequence-launch-event-tickets-857074883047?aff=oddtdtcreator

Art in Romney Marsh 2023

Last verse, film still, 2022

We are delighted to share that Pale Blue Dot Collective has been included in Art in Romney Marsh’s Sirens Call upcoming exhibition in St Mary the Virgin’s Church, St Mary in the Marsh, near to Dungeness in Kent. We will be displaying Last verse, as a dual screen installation, which was made during our BigCi Environmental Art Award Residency in the Blue Mountains in Australia, where we spent June and July in 2022. Thank you to Arts Council England for supporting this project and for the Romney Marsh community for allowing us to display this work in such a beautiful church.

Dates
16 September - 8 October
Saturdays and Sundays 1 - 5pm

Artists
a:dress, Kimberley Cookey Gam, Pale Blue Dot Collective, Roxanne Simone, Jo de Banzie, Rebecca Elves, Sarah Karen, Liv Pennington, Clare Unsworth

Art in Romney Marsh 2023 is a celebration of exciting perspectives on the title A Siren’s Call. The works address issues of the climate crisis and the threat of rising sea levels. The range of approaches includes sculpture, performance and the uniqueness of each artists creative, site specific installs. Each creative commission invites our audiences to explore the medieval church spaces with a new and artist led experience. The selected artists have responded to so many influences including local history and heritage, through to the perils we face from climate change and the need for taking a Carbon Net Zero pathway.

Art in Romney Marsh was founded in 2003. The organisation has delivered a varied programme of exhibitions centred on 8 medieval churches located on Denge and Walland marsh. Art in Romney Marsh continues to support artists to experiment and make site-specific work. Since 2011, AiRM has delivered a wide range of learning programmes that engage community groups with their local heritage and history.  Creative, partnership and educational opportunities are organised by Susan Churchill.

Find out more information here.

Lom+You Award

We are delighted to share that Pale Blue Dot Collective was selected as one of 20 awardees to be supported by Lom, from 170 proposals from more than 50 countries around the world. We will be given a Lom Geofón microphone.

Geofón is a sensitive omnidirectional geophone adjusted for field recording purposes. Originally designed for seismic measurements, it can be used with regular field recording equipment to capture very faint vibrations in various materials and even soil.

We will use our Geofón mic to record the vibrations of and around the sea defences on the island of Great Britain. We will let the recordings dictate a process of composition, layering them with recordings from our catalogue of sounds from around the world. Our work will explore the urgency of our environmental situation and investigate how rising sea levels are and will continue to affect ecosystems in many different ways.

Supported artists
Alexis Perpelycia (Argentina)
Anmol Tikoo (India)
Arielle Estrada (Senegal)
Chris Dooks (Scotland)
Jami Reimer (Canada)
George Moraitis (Greece)
Kosmas Phan Dinh (Germany)
Lisa Schonberg (Brazil)
Nithin Shamsudhin (India)
Viki Arvay (Slovakia)
Cia Himiân Lí (Taiwan)
Cosmo Sheldrake (UK)
Douglas Tewksbury (Arctic)
Frontyard space (Australia)
Chris Myhr (Canada)
Eleni-Ira Panourgia (Germany)
Leonard Maassen (Switzerland)
Mafalda Ramos (Brazil)
Pale Blue Dot collective (UK)
Raphaële Dupire (France)

Lom Geofón

BigCi Environmental Art Award Residency

We are very pleased to share that we will be in residence at BigCi Australia for our postponed BigCi Environmental Art Award Residency 2020, from mid June to mid July this year. We will be based in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales.

During our residency, we will be exploring the environmental challenges that the Wollemi National Park has faced and will face in the future. This award offers an opportunity to share the complexity of the irreplaceable ecosystem of the National Park, utilising the expert knowledge of BigCi and to draw attention to the fragility of this rich and diverse ecosystem by employing a cosmic perspective. 

From a distance, we have been overwhelmed by the recent ecological crises in Australia and will create an immersive sound and visual experience that invites international audiences to create a meaningful connection to the individual life forms that dwell in the Wollemi National Park. Through video, photography and sound recording, we will create a time capsule of a moment in history that seems to be a tipping point in the human created deterioration of millions of years of successful evolution. 

We will photograph and film the night sky, the flora and fauna and landscapes. Using field recordings, we will create a complex narrative sound piece that echoes the sounds of the Blue Mountains. Through presenting the area with a deep time perspective, we will invite viewers to consider the incomprehensible value of the ecosystems of fire and flood endangered areas of Australia.

BigCi - Bilpin international ground for Creative initiatives

‘BigCi is an independent, artist run, not for profit artist residency program focusing on artists’ professional development and facilitating their projects.

BigCi has been established and run by Rae Bolotin, a practicing artist, and Yuri Bolotin, environmentalist and wilderness explorer.

Because of our location on the edge of Wollemi National Park within the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Greater Blue Mountains and the knowledge base of our team, many of our resident artists are particularly interested in projects that explore environmental or ecological issues, although many others use our beautiful natural surroundings as a source of creativity for a variety of different artistic pursuits.

All residents have opportunities to take part in bush walks conducted by Yuri Bolotin, an experienced mountain guide and author, and to learn first hand about the unique natural environment of the area.

Artists-in-residence are able to present their work during a BigCi Open Day that usually takes place at the end of their stay.’

*We are conscious of the plane travel to do these projects and have considered it a lot. We believe that the work that we produce during the Australian residency will be disseminated to a wide audience in the UK/ internationally, and will help to highlight the climate events that are happening in the Blue Mountains, from our own perspective, living on an island with differing environmental issues.

Images are from Google Earth of Blue Mountains, Australia.

Sensational Books Exhibition

Hear our sound commission at Sensational Books, a new exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, explores the experience of the book beyond reading.

Designed not only to celebrate the sensory appeal of reading physical books but also to explore the accessibility of reading today to those who are sensory impaired, the exhibition features books and items from the Bodleian’s collections that invite a sensory response across the five senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, touch and beyond.

As e-books continue to grow in use, this exhibition celebrates the material book and the ways in which readers have enjoyed them. Alongside the five senses, this exhibition asks visitors to experience proprioception, the name given at the start of the twentieth century to the sense of self-movement and body-perception.

The exhibition features an extraordinary selection of medieval, pre-modern, modern, and contemporary books, drawn from a range of cultures and in a variety of formats. The exhibition will also feature, for the first time at the Bodleian Libraries, an audio guide that has been made in partnership with people who are visually impaired. This has been led by a group of local people who will give you an insight into how books can be experienced when a sense is changed.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

• Dizzy Pragnell’s books, made of vegetables, which encourage the viewer to look with fresh eyes at the familiar.

• A 14th century Psalter that has been heavily used for devotions (MS Canon Liturg. 126). The featured page shows an illuminated initial with heaven at the top and the earth below, and the marks on the paint reveal how a reader used the page like a modern touch screen, swiping the soul heavenwards.

• A miniature travelling set of 60 books that were bound in red leather for the 8-year-old Prince Charles early in the 17th century and known as Prince Charles’ ‘travelling library’. Each book is the size of a matchbox (Emmerson 1-53)

Sensational Books is co-curated by Kathryn Rudy, Professor of Art History at the University of St Andrews and Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Oxford.

Read more here.

Research trip to Bodleian Library, Oxford

In 2020 we were commissioned by the Bodleian Library and Fusion Arts Oxford to create a sound piece that explored a collection of contemporary and historical books through all of our senses for the upcoming exhibition 'Sense-sational Books'. We are currently creating our sound piece for the exhibition, titled 'Audioscripts'.

We have recently been to the Bodleian Library to record the sound of some of their incredible books. This one is one of our favourites - it is John James Audubon's Birds of America. The book was printed between 1827 and 1838, and contains 435 life-size watercolours of North American birds, all reproduced from hand-engraved plates, and is considered to be the archetype of wildlife illustration.

The bigger birds in the book are painted with their long necks curled around so they fit on the page. The book is over a metre tall, and 72cm wide. It took two people to turn each page, very carefully.

We will be sharing more about our project soon.

Courtesy of the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove, Montgomery County Audubon Collection, and Zebra Publishing.

Microscopic Explorations of Ramsgate Beach Workshop

We are looking forward to our upcoming workshop for Ramsgate Festival of the Senses at 2.30PM on Saturday 19 March in Ramsgate, Kent.

Join us for a walk along Ramsgate Main Sands collecting organic objects like stones, shells, seaweed, crab carapaces, fossils etc, as well as debris that the high tide has brought ashore. You will be encouraged to explore the objects through touch, smell and vision and to think about why you wanted to collect them. Each object will be further explored using a digital moving image microscope.

You will be able to take home a selection of printed images of the objects you have selected. We will start our workshop in the Ramsgate Tunnels.

Find tickets here.

Harmonic Islands Exhibition

Join us for Pale Blue Dot Collective’s first collective exhibition in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Through sound, we journey back to ancient Aotearoa, to imagine the forests before they were ever seen by human eyes. As we move from the water to the forest, pushing through dense vegetation, we encounter mysterious sounds eluding to species that are no longer part of our landscape. Through a deep-time perspective, we invite you into a new way of seeing the familiar species that we share our world with and explore the cosmic importance of our habitats.

Pale Blue Dot Collective is the collective name of Louise Beer and John Hooper. Louise spent several weeks in residence on behalf of the collective in September 2020. During the residency, Louise travelled around the Ōtautahi Christchurch area and spent time field recording and photographing the forests and landscapes. The artists worked across oceans to develop this work whilst separated by pandemic restrictions.

Together, the artists endeavour to bring a new perspective about the detrimental impact of the climate crisis, not only to humanity but to all life and all environments. Framing the impact through the eyes of evolution and the immense time period it has taken for each form of life to arrive at this point, they create a space for discussion around the damage we are collectively participating in and its universal impact.

Louise lived in Ōtepoti Dunedin before moving to the UK as a teenager. John was born in Preston, UK, and they live and work in Margate, UK.

Find out more here.

Auckland University of Technology/ The World of the Light Exhibition

Under the Fading Light has been selected for the Auckland University of Technology The World of Light Exhibition. The exhibition is currently online until next year when it will move to a physical space, due to Covid restrictions.

The World of Light (2021) is a forum for creative expressions, understandings and enlightenment across design, science, Māori and indigenous development, education, art, creative technologies and transdisciplinary research. Hosted by Auckland University of Technology in association with Artweek Auckland 2021.

The other wonderful artists in the exhibition are:

Alex Billingham
Aurelie Crisetig
Ayshia Taskin & Daniele Bongiovanni
Bharati Kapadia
Bob Bicknell-Knight
Carol Sowden
Caroline Areskog Jones
David Anthony Sant
David Ian Bickley
Hye Rim Lee
Jonathan Armour
Kate Aries
Nicola Rae
Robert Jarvis
Shahar Tuchner
Yula Kim

Visit the exhibition here.

Above and Below – Ancient Materials: Virtual Arts-Science Residency

Pale Blue Dot Collective will be presenting a talk for 'Above and Below – Ancient Materials: Virtual Arts-Science Residency' by Mayes Creative and Royal Astronomical Society ✨ The online residency runs from 11 – 15 Oct 2021. You can apply via CuratorSpace

'Framing the Universe

Pale Blue Dot Collective will present a series of works that explore the world around us, from the coastline of Margate to the endless skies of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Through their shared practice, the artists endeavour to bring a new perspective about the detrimental impact of the climate crisis, not only to humanity but to all life and all environments. Framing the impact through the eyes of evolution and the immense time period it has taken for each form of life to arrive at this point, the artists want to create a space for discussion around the damage we are collectively participating in and its universal impact.

The duo have been commissioned by Bodleian Library x Fusion Arts, Oxford, Ramsgate Festival of Sound, Ramsgate, Nablus Festival, Palestine and are creating a sound based exhibition for the Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2022, the artists will take residence at BigCi in the Blue Mountains, Australia, as the Environmental Award 2020 winners. Earlier this year the artists took part in the Margate School: Art, Society, Nature: Photography Residency 2021, Margate.'

Find out more here.

Commission: Ramsgate Festival of Sound

We are delighted to share that Pale Blue Dot Collective has been commissioned by Ramsgate Festival of Sound to make a new sound piece called 'Overland Undersea'. We will be using field recordings taken around the area to create an immersive sound experience for the festival.

Our piece is titled ‘Overland, Undersea’.

Open daily from 12-5pm between 2 and 5 September.
Venue: The Pub, 87 High St, Ramsgate CT11 9RJ (in the basement)

Find out more here.

Between Sea and Sky

The culmination of our work during The Margate School, Art, Society, Nature: Photography Residency 2021 will be exhibited at the school in Margate from the 12th-18th June.

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.

Bodleian Library x Fusion Arts Sound Commission

We are thrilled to share that Pale Blue Dot Collective have been selected to create a sound piece for the upcoming Bodleian Library exhibition titled ‘Sensational Books’. In 2020, Pale Blue Dot Collective was selected to visit the libraries and view some of the incredible collection. We were then invited to submit an idea for a commission which we will share about soon.

We will be exploring a series of historical texts as well as recording sounds in the libraries.

‘Professor Emma Smith, University of Oxford and Kathryn Rudy, an art historian, medievalist and weaver based at the University of St Andrews are exploring encounters with the book beyond reading. Fusion Arts is collaborating with the Bodleian Libraries to work with artists to explore the book as an object engaging senses beyond sight in the exhibition room and explore the sonic qualities of library material.

The Sensational Books project explores the book as an object: the materials used, the sizing and shaping, the interpretation and experimentation of format, evoking the people and the spaces connected to the life of a book, including the relationship between the digital and the physical.

Following a workshop at the Weston Library, artists were invited to submit proposals that respond sonically to the exhibits and reveal aspects of the immersive experience of the book. These artworks will form part of the Weston Library’s Exhibition Sensational Books.’

PALE BLUE DOT COLLECTIVE RESIDENCY AT THE MARGATE SCHOOL

Pale Blue Dot Collective are pleased to share that we have been selected for the @themargateschool Art, Society, Nature: Photography Residency 2021. We will be working on our project titled 'Floating in Space'.

Pale Blue Dot Collective will create a series of images depicting how solitary beings are all connected, using images of under the water surface shot in Walpole Bay, and the night sky shot in Margate and Minster.

We will create a photographic folio that examines the parallels between floating in the ocean and Earth moving through our solar system. The work will be 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 will invite the viewer to imagine how we fit into our ecosystem, and how our ecosystem fits into the cosmos. This work will explore the fragile nature of our coastal area. For some, the virus has been an incredibly isolating experience. This work will show the connection between all of us, as we stand and gaze over the horizon, or towards our galaxy.

Alongside this photographic work, we will create a soundscape using a hydrophone to record the movement of the waves and sound recorders for life above the waterline. We will also record the movement of the trees that we view the stars through at our studio in Minster.

The residency will allow us to use the darkroom facilities at the Margate School for eight weeks. Read more about The Margate School here.

PALE BLUE DOT INTERVIEW/ SVOX.TV

We are thrilled to share that Pale Blue Dot Collective has been interviewed on SVOX.TV, an amazing new platform for film and video arts.

Read the full interview here.

SVOX.TV is curated by Daniel Hawley-Lingham. Have a look around the wonderful collection of artists films!

THE COMPLETE ENTANGLEMENT OF EVERYTHING /DUNEDIN SCHOOL OF ART, AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND/ ONLINE IMAGE GALLERY AND CATALOGUE

The online catalogue for the incredible exhibition, ‘The Complete Entanglement of Everything’ at Ōtepoti Dunedin School of Art, Aotearoa New Zealand, is now available online:

Exhibition Essay
Exhibition Catalogue
Exhibition Images

Image by Jodie Gibson.