101 Archer art exhibition challenges viewers to confront their preconceived notions of the “alien.”
The “Alien Worlds” art exhibition debuted this week at 101 Archer, compiled of a collection of primary sources, including historical documents, popular culture references, photographs, and scientific developments across a broad swath of human history. As a whole, the art exhibition aims to challenge what it means for something to be understood as “alien,” It does this by showing the different ways humans have tried to understand and conceptualize the unknown, with everything from NASA satellite images and telescopes to Afrofuturist science fiction films.
In the first section of the gallery, there was an exhibit showing a photograph of state-of-the-art telescope equipment, specifically, a focal plane mask for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. This component, as a part of a larger mechanism, is used to suppress starlight and reveal planets orbiting a certain star. The piece as a whole serves to reflect the hypermodern technological advancements humans have developed to better understand the cosmic alien world. Directly opposing this more advanced scientific tool is a collection of different historical maps, notably the Fra Mauro map created and named after the 15th century Italian cartographer himself. Oriented with the south at the top, the intricate map depicts Asia, Africa, Europe and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, along with detailed annotations of the different regions collected by the cartographer through extensive interviews with travelers. While the map itself is a shockingly accurate geographic depiction for the time period, it also contains incredibly detailed notes of the different regions and stories of the world, each serving as a testament to the value of its collaborative nature.
The juxtaposition of these two pieces of technology not only emphasizes the human dedication to the pursuit of knowledge, but also highlights the interconnected nature that is inherent in this pursuit. These exhibits depict individual technologies that are only useful when taken as a sum of its parts. The focal plane mask by itself is useless, because its value derives from its relational nature with the rest of the telescope. In much of the same way, the map described above derives its value from the collection of individual contributions. Any single contribution is unintelligible until brought into conversation with the others.
Technological advancements, however, are not the sole tools humans use to conceptualize the unknown. This section of the gallery also exhibited various artifacts from science fiction and fantasy media throughout history. One such example being a poster from the 1974 Afrofuturist film “Space is the Place.” The plot follows protagonist, Sun Ra, a cosmic jazz musician recruiting African Americans to settle a new, utopian planet free of racism, using music as a tool of Black liberation.
More generally, this initial part of the exhibition largely reflected positive sentiments regarding the unknown, inspiring curiosity, wonder, and even hope. However, the second part of the gallery explored the consequences of fear, and the implications of being understood as culturally “alien.” One specific exhibit encapsulating these consequences was a European depiction of three Inuit, Dalicho, Arnaq, and her child Nattaaq, when they were forcibly brought back to England in 1577. This brings to light the very real implications of condemning certain cultures and groups of people to being “alien.” In this way, those understood as “alien” are objectified, and this undermining of humanity creates a subtext in which violence and fear can thrive.
The underlying theme of the “Alien Worlds” art exhibition is one that encourages individuals to challenge their understanding of the “alien” both cosmically and socially and explore how different perspectives can make the familiar become “alien.” As a collective, it seems, humanity has come to an understanding of the foreign and the alien as the “other,” distinctly and irrevocably separate from the conception of ourselves, and situationally defined against the familiar. The very word “alien” necessitates a fundamental unbelonging from the collective, and an exile of humanity. However, the exhibition may suggest that the unknown cosmic world is most fully understood in a context where humanity more fully understands itself. Beginning to conceptualize existence as collective, and as being a part of a singular entity, beyond the individual or solar system, humanity can adopt a new understanding of the alien as the undisclosed, or not yet known as opposed to insurmountably distinct. From this perspective, individuals make the familiar become alien when they distance themselves from others, particularly of “alien” cultures. It is in this space where humanity will be unable to confront the unknown with hope or curiosity, only with the fear of a fragmented consciousness.
