super/collider presents: In Praise of Darkness

Join super/collider, astronomer Marek Kukula and Curator of Art Melanie Vandenbrouck to explore the role of darkness in science.

Darkness can reveal as well as conceal: today's astronomers seek out the darkest sites on Earth in order to see further into the universe, the Hubble Space Telescope's 10-day stare into the darkness in 1995 produced the dazzling vista of the Hubble Deep Field. Meanwhile, in 1999, the artist Michael Light remastered NASA's collection of Apollo photographs in an attempt to do full justice to the inky blackness of the lunar sky.

Marek and Melanie will trace the changing face of darkness from its traditional use as a symbol of the unknown to the modern day quest for ultimate darkness in the form of the Vantablack pigment.

Marek Kukula (Public Astronomer) and Melanie Vandenbrouck (Curator of Art) are both based at Royal Museums Greenwich, home of the Royal Observatory Greenwich and the Queen's House art gallery. In 2015 they curated the exhibition “dark frame/deep field” at Breese Little Gallery to coincide with the New Horizons probe's fly-by of Pluto. The exhibition showcased a number of works by contemporary artists alongside vintage NASA photographs, highlighting our ongoing desire to explore and map the cosmos.