Inspired by 'Star Stuff'...
“Cosmological Elements” is a new group installations exhibition down at Fosun Foundation that takes as its inspiration what Carl Sagan called “star stuff” and spins a sense of wonder through a bunch of different paradigms of understanding: scientific, philosophical, religious, satirical, lyrical, and arcane. It has the veneer of a straightforward educational astronomy exhibition at the local planetarium, until you look closer at the pieces: “Moon Goose Colony”, video and installation depicting a colony of geese on the moon; “The Tapestry of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence”, which… is that; and “Wishing Well Cluster”; a giant, shimmering aluminum mirror that recasts a black hole as a wishing well in space.
Twenty-eight exhibitions split over two floors filters the pursuit of knowledge of the stars and the cosmos through supposition, speculation, and science fiction. Research and experiments are invented to answer serious scientific inquiry: “The Institute of Isolation” presents a subject in an “anechoic chamber” — a big hamster wheel — exploring “the psychoacoustics of silence”. In “The Great Silence”, endangered Puerto Rican parrots witness humanity’s search for life beyond earth. EXBIOTANICA imagines a flower “seeping into unknown territory beyond the earth”.
“Cosmological Elements” is crazy. And bizarre. And really worth a visit if you’re looking for inspired encounters of the cosmic divine...