Volume 16

The Way I See the Stars: Fiber-Art Inspired by Astrobiology

Merja Markkula

Abstract

Throughout my life I have studied edges, borderlines, signs determining inside and outside, insider and outsider, seeking to understand the differences – or similarities – between scientific and artistic ways of appreciating life. In 2005 I had a special opportunity to follow the lectures of the Vatican summer school of astrobiology, and expand my understanding of the origin and limiting factors of life. Inspired by this, I made the strongly hairy, three-dimensional, black felt Dark Matter and Extraterrestrial art works, expressing something between known and foreign, visible and hidden, combining male and female and general mammalian features. These works were exhibited in Gerald R. Ford Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, 2006. I continued reading my notes about the inspiring lectures by Lunine et al., resulting in making a series of fibre artworks called Lecture Notes and, finally, a series of twenty works about the origin and limitations of life. This exhibition, The way I see the Stars, felt inspired by astrobiology and has been shown in Castel Gandolfo, Rome, Italy and in Kaarina, Finland. All the works have been made using fibre techniques.