The installation consisted of 99 blue spherical structures arranged on the polar ice in exact, calculated alignment with 99 stars. Each sphere's diameter correlated to the relative brightness of its unique, corresponding star. The resulting work created a large-scale stellar map on the Antarctic ice. As the planet rotated on its axis and continued to orbit around the sun, the relationship between the spheres and stars began to shift out of alignment, creating an imperceptible spiral of motion at the South Pole. To complete the Antacrtic leg of the Stellar Axis work, a group of 51 scientists and technicians from nearby research facility McMurdo Station aided a performance that traced a spiral path among the spheres. The line drawn by human feet visualized the invisible movement created by the earth's rotation and position of the stars as an ephemeral, human gesture symbolizing the often unseen relationship to our planet, the universe, and ourselves.
Above: Stellar Axis, 2006, by Lita Albuquerque, photo by Jean de Pomereu.
The fossilized brachiopod from three hundred millions years ago appears to be an ancient remnant of star, waiting to be transformed back to its stellar origin.
Some brittle stars exist in the Antarctic and Arctic, and some are found even in the deepest parts of the ocean where there is no sunlight. Others have exquisitely developed crystalline lenses, formed from the bone in their skeletons, which focus light inside their bodies and enable them to see.
'But this is not blackness, it is full of something from long ago with the potential of something yet to be.'"
Lita Albuquerque
The installation consisted of 99 blue spherical structures arranged on the polar ice in exact, calculated alignment with 99 stars.
Stellar Axis: Antarctica
A. galerie
Rue Léonce Reynaud 12, Paris
On view through 14 January 2012
