Concrete Playground

2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, and what does that mean for us lay people? Besides a lot of unapologetic star-gazing, it means enjoying exhibitions like Beyond visibility: light and dust at UTS Gallery. Brought to you by astronomer/photographer David Malin, and artist Felicity Spear, this show features their work and that of Arnhem Land artist, Gulumbu Yunupingu. Malin’s impressive photographs show a side of the natural world untouchable but for technology; their exactness contrasts with the imagined mappings of constellations in Spear’s mural-sized paintings and the proliferation of stars in Yunupingu’s larrakitj (hollow funeral poles). Beyond visibility reminds us we’re all tiny, and we're all looking at the same sky.

Image: David Malin, The Corona Australis reflection nebula, 2008, ink jet print. Courtesy of Anglos-Australian Observatory and David Malin images.