A new immersive exhibition opening this month at Lake Macquarie's Multi-Arts Pavilion, mima (MAP mima) will invite visitors to consider what we stand to lose as light pollution increasingly obscures the night sky.
Darkness in 589 is the latest exhibition to emerge from the Australian Network for Art in Technology (ANAT) and MAP mima Artist Residency and Commission program, bringing together Gamilaraay astrophysicist Peter Swanton, Mardigan/Anglo-Celtic artist Georgia Hayward, and multidisciplinary Iranian artist Prita Tina Yeganeh.
Opening on Friday 25 September, Darkness in 589 invites audiences to consider through their senses what darkness sustains and what is at risk of being lost due to light pollution.
MAP mima Curator David Rastas said the multimedia work was developed using experimental research undertaken at Warrumbungle Dark Sky Park in Central West NSW, the first dark sky reserve in the Southern Hemisphere.
"Their findings have been transformed into a responsive, immersive installation inside MAP mima's Cube, revealing biological and ecological processes that are normally invisible to the human eye," he said.
Darkness in 589 responds to the loss of natural darkness through the global threat of light pollution, which now compromises the environmental, cultural and physical health of more than 80 percent of the world's population.
Lake Macquarie City Council's artist residency program supports artists and researchers working at the intersection of creative practice, scientific inquiry and emerging technology.
"This is a way of encouraging new ways of understanding complex environmental and cultural issues," Mr Rastas said.
The exhibition runs from Friday 25 September to Sunday 29 November at MAP mima, Speers Point. A free opening event will be held from 5-7pm on Friday 25 September.
