Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle I
Louise Beer
Metallic c-type mounted on aluminium
100cm × 67 x 3.5cm
2024

Richard Bright: Can we begin by you saying something about your background?

Louise Beer: I am an artist and curator, working at the intersection of art and science. I am engaged in long-term art and science collaborations, and I also work collaboratively with other artists.

I am from Aotearoa New Zealand and now live in Margate on the South-East coast of England. I use sound, moving image, photography, installation, writing and participatory elements to reflect on the story of Earth’s changing environments and our relationship to the universe. I studied a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Middlesex University before doing an MA in Art and Science at Central Saint Martins. I deeply value what a privilege it is to have the time and opportunity to consider our place in the universe through my work. My voice is but one of many ways of looking into the stars to try to make sense of our place in the universe, as humanity has done through different cultures and societies throughout human history.

Turbulence
Louise Beer
Giclée on Hahnemühle Bamboo
49 x 102 cm
2022

RB: What is the underlying focus of your work? In particular, what are the thinking processes and knowledge practices that guide your artistic research?

LB: My artistic research explores how light pollution may be changing our fundamental understanding of being part of Earth’s ecosystems and part of the cosmos. Could we ever imagine something more unbelievable than what science is revealing about the universe? As our scientific knowledge of Earth and the universe expands, our sense of connection and compassion for other elements of this planet’s ecosystems can feel more fragile. 

In so many places on Earth, we no longer have the enduring presence of the night to contextualise our own lives, and the lives of other living beings. I believe that this is influencing how some of us understand the significance of the climate crisis. If we looked at each member or part of the living system through an astronomical lens – would we not see each form of life, each material of Earth, as cosmically significant? If we understood that each grain of soil, each stone, each fluttering wing of a butterfly is only here on Earth, due to billions of years of cosmic and planetary processes, might we think differently? Might we act differently?

Earth as a Planetary Landscape/ Eternally spinning through darkness
Louise Beer
C-type mounted on aluminium
84.5 x 25 x 3.5 cm
2021
Photograph by John Hooper

RB: Have there been any particular influences to your ideas and work?

LB: The biggest influences on my work have been spending time in Earth’s varied landscapes, looking into the night, and engaging with different aspects of science. My fear for the climate crisis in both the present and the future can put me into a spiral of despair. However, it is only for a moment – as I think about all the layers of life in Earth’s ecosystems that need members of our species to understand the severity and the significance of this moment. I deeply believe in reflecting on and communicating the urgency – and in talking about why our planet and all the human and non-human life it contains, is unfathomably important.

Different encounters in my life have felt like opening windows into the experience of the lives of other forms of life. I went snorkelling in tropical waters when I was young, and seeing the array of colours, species, personalities of the sea life and all the elements that make up such an elaborate environment changed my thinking forever. I loved how it was so hidden from above the surface of the water and my love for hidden spaces, metaphorically far from the eyes of human beings, is woven through my practice. I have had a handful of transformative experiences encountering different creatures under dark skies, bathed in moonlight, when we were both sharing the same moment of Earth’s cosmic history.

Writings by authors such as Johan Eklöf, Rachel Carson and Martin Rees have deeply pushed and pulled at my sense of the scales of time, reminding me that my experiences fall within vast ecological and cosmic rhythms, deepening my sense of responsibility to defend the fragility and the importance of darkness.

Conversations with an array of scientists from all over the world keep me endlessly fascinated with the world we live in, and the cosmos we are part of.  Some of my favourite experiences have been in the presence of works by James Turrell, Helen Pashgian, United Visual Artists, Ryoji Ikeda and De Wain Valentine.

Mōna/ Absence
Louise Beer
C-type with acrylic facemount
80 x 55 x 3.5 cm
2014
Photograph by John Hooper

RB: Where did your interest in the night sky begin?

LB: My father was an astronomy enthusiast – he had many photographs of deep space, and diagrams of the Milky Way around his different houses throughout my childhood, which I think played a part in creating this persisting presence of the cosmos in my work. We would use his telescope to look at objects in the sky above Dunedin and talk about the possibilities we might find. One question led to another and I think we both felt intoxicated by the sheer possibilities and improbability of it all. As the sun faded away, the night revealed an endless array of planets, galaxies and stars. It felt only natural to be considering our place in the universe. My dad also had a solar filter for looking at the sun through his telescope (don’t look at the sun without a special filter!) and this helped me to get more of a sense of our solar system. Daytime astronomy reminds us of the connectivity of everything – and that the cosmos isn’t just something that appears at night.

Living under dark skies, and experiencing an enduring presence of the cosmos at nighttime helped me to place Earth into a cosmic landscape from a young age. Visiting the unpopulated, huge imposing landscapes of the central South Island with my family cemented this centrepoint of reference. The depth of the stars seemed to begin not with a great distance, but to be entwined with the edge of our atmosphere. The stars never felt anything but entirely enmeshed with our world.

Eternity in Pitch Black
Louise Beer
C-type mounted with acrylic facemount
40 x 40 x 3.5 cm
2012
Photograph by John Hooper

The cosmos underpins everything on Earth, every experience we have, every fragment of life and interaction. I have never become complacent of the strangeness of the universe – from first thinking about it as a young person, to knowing much more about it today.

My interest in light pollution began when I understood as a young teenager that not everyone on Earth shared the same visual access to dark skies that I had living in Aotearoa. I remember standing on a doorstep looking out over the town I lived in England, and wondering why there were so few stars or such a little sense of ‘darkness’. In contrast, the stars in the skies of Aotearoa filled my frame of view. They remain the foundation of how I understand the world.

Revolving through the Megacosm
Louise Beer
5m40s
2022

RB: How was your audio/ visual installation Gathering Light created and how did it come about?

Gathering Light
Louise Beer
Multimedia installation
2022
Photograph by John Hooper

LB: I was invited by FORMAT Photography Festival and Derby Cathedral to create an idea for an artwork that responded to the Christian practice of Lent. I was deeply inspired by the reflective nature of the practice. I have spent many years curating and creating work in church spaces and I am drawn to the interaction between works that explore our place and moment in the universe, and spaces of contemplation and reverence.

It had been two years since my father had passed away, and I saw this project as an opportunity to think about how my experience of loss and grief might connect to my relationship with the cosmos. After the passing of my father, it felt like I had stepped over a threshold into a new way of being – forever changed, by an uncontainable, ungraspable new way of experiencing life. I wanted to examine how closeness to both the coastline and darker night skies of Margate may be helping me to come to terms with this new reality.

How can we understand the momentary nature of our lifetimes, in a cosmic context? Where do the particles that created our bodies and minds come from, and where do they go? How does the reliability of tides, the rising and setting of the sun and the lunar phases help us to place ourselves within this context, and better comprehend the passing of those we care about?

Looking out into the North Sea helped me to focus on these planetary and cosmic rhythms – moments of time within this enormous cycle of life, death and regeneration. This perspective allowed me to see that woven throughout my sense of loss is the feeling of privilege that we shared this moment of Earth’s history together. Relating the tides to the Moon, and the daily cycles of light and dark connects our planet to the vast universe. The very distant becomes somehow more knowable – as we are the universe looking towards itself. A poignant conversation with an astronomer helped me see that the atoms that make our bodies and everything we know will in some way be present through the rest of the universe. We are but momentary collections of materials of the universe, coming together like the molecules of a wave, for a brief moment of cosmic time.

For forty consecutive days, I photographed the sky at different times of day, keeping a diary of how I felt. These photographs became the elements of the 36 minute audio visual installation called Gathering Light. The work is a meditation on the constancy of time. As one phase fades into another, it offers a quiet acknowledgement of what has passed, and an uninvited continuance. The phases of the sky slowly spin in the darkness, evoking a planet suspended in space while the soundscape crashes through one sky to the next.

I was deeply touched to receive messages from audience members who shared their experiences of loss and grief with me. I also had conversations with other artists about how they related to the night during times of loss. Access to dark skies is vastly unequal both within the UK and globally. Access to dark skies can be crucial for mental health and for cultural identity, and it is something that everyone, everywhere on Earth should be able to experience from their home.

Gathering Light was located in the crypt of Derby Cathedral. This intimate space is the home of the remains of several people connected to the Cathedral and I was very conscious of creating something sensitive to that.

Gathering Light

Louise Beer

Derby Cathedral
2023

RB: Can you say something about your project Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle, Chapters 1 & 2?

Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle/ Billions and billions and billions of years
Louise Beer
Giclée on Hahnemühle Bamboo
147 x 98 cm
2024

LB: This is a project that I am working to pursue for the entirety of my career. I have so far completed two chapters – the first in collaboration with astronomer Dr Ian Griffin and Tūhura Otago Museum in my home city of Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand, funded by a British Council Connections through Culture grant. The second chapter is currently on display at Everybody Arts in Halifax, England, and has been in collaboration with the gallery and the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. This project uses the vastness of time and space to invite slow contemplation, turning the immensity of the cosmos into a means of connecting with the fragility of Earth’s environments.

The work brings together the voices and cultural perspectives of scientists and different community groups alongside photography, sound and installations which explore the cosmic significance of the climate crisis, creating a time capsule of perspectives.

Over both chapters, I have worked with geologists, biologists and astronomers to explore their research, and understand how their mode of knowledge frames how they think about the changes that are happening to Earth’s environments. It was fascinating for me to learn about how they see the near and distant future unravelling. Each scientist had a different focus and a different degree of concern. At the end of the conversation, I gave the scientist an envelope with a blank card and instructions in it, to be filled in under a clear night sky.

The scientists were asked:

‘How does your knowledge of the scales of time and the ∼13.8 billion year concatenation of astronomical and Earth-based events required to create Earth and all its biodiversity, help to shape your understanding of the significance of the climate crisis?’

Scientist response
Earth a Cosmic Spectacle/ Chapter 1
2024

In Aotearoa I worked with two high schools – Kaikorai Valley College and Logan Park High School. I talked about my different experiences of the night sky – when I lived in Aotearoa, and then my life under the UK skies. I gave each participant the same blank card to be filled in whilst looking into a clear night sky.

In Halifax, I worked with an inspiring community group to think about these subjects. Firstly, astronomer Richard Darn offered insights into the different stages of the universe’s history – from the formation of elements in stars, to the long and gradual development of life on Earth. We then opened the event up for discussion, before participants responded through drawing and writing.

The community provocation was different to the scientists:

‘Look into the dark skies above you. Listen to the sounds of the environment all around you. Think about your place within Earth’s ecosystem and where Earth fits into the solar system and the galaxy. Think about the darkness around our Milky Way and the distance to the next galaxy.

Close your eyes and imagine seeing Earth from a great distance. Think about the colours and all the human and non-human life that has lived and lives within all of its environments. How would you describe Earth from this perspective?’

Community response
Earth a Cosmic Spectacle/ Chapter 1
2024

The photographic elements of the project are developed in conversation with the responses from the scientists and the community groups. Many of these images are created by taking photographs in different landscapes, and of different skies, and digitally layering them, bringing together different scales of time – the first being the astronomical, to the geologic, to the brief moment of an existence – whether an insect, a plant or a human being. I hope the images evoke familiarity, but also distance – with an emphasis that these landscapes do not belong to humanity – they have been here long before us and will continue to evolve, bearing the footprints of other creatures, far beyond the horizon of our species.

Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle/ Coalescence
Louise Beer
Giclée on Hahnemühle Bamboo
99 x 74 cm
2024

Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle/ The enormity of it all
Louise Beer
Giclée on Hahnemühle Bamboo
99 x 74 cm
2025

The soundscape is also a cumulative idea. In my exhibition at Everybody Arts, at one end of the expansive gallery, visitors hear a piece recorded in Pūrākaunui, Aotearoa of local birds, from Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, I used field recordings from Calderale to create a more planetary sound. These two parts together are called ‘The Weight of Time’ and interact with each other as you walk around the space, with one becoming more prominent as you move from one end of the gallery to another. The constant rhythm of the second element – reminds us of cosmic time – that this moment, is just one of an unfathomable number, that will stretch far into the distance, far beyond our lifetimes, humanity, our planet, our solar system.

I am excited to be working with other partners on upcoming chapters. If you would like to contribute to this project, please get in touch.

Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle
Tūhura Otago Museum,
Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand
2024
Photograph by Louise Beer

Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle
Everybody Arts
Halifax, England
2026
Photograph by John Hooper

Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle
Everybody Arts
Halifax, England
2025
Photograph by John Hooper

RB: Can you say something about your collaboration with John Hooper in Pale Blue Dot Collective? What are it’s aims and what exhibitions/projects have taken place as a result?

LB: John is a wonderful photographic, installation and sound artist. Our shared interests in astronomy and the environment have led us to many inspiring places. We started working collaboratively as Pale Blue Dot Collective around 8 years ago and our work echoes the themes of understanding the cosmic significance of the climate crisis. I feel very lucky to work with John.

In 2020, we were awarded the BigCi Environmental Arts Award that included a month-long residency at BigCi, in Bilpin, Australia. Our residency was delayed due to the covid restrictions until 2022. The residency is located in Wollemi National Park within the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Greater Blue Mountains. The bright blue skies and dark night time skies were a serene backdrop to the seemingly endless forests.

In 2019/2020 there were catastrophic bushfires in the area, known as the ‘Black Summer’ fires. It was sobering to walk through the blackened trees, jarring against the slowly regenerating flora. The intensity of the fires meant that the bird, insect and other wildlife populations had been diminished and this absence felt very evident in the landscape. While we were there, an increasingly common occurrence of flooding swept through the nearby area causing further damage. Witnessing the aftermath of these disasters was deeply confronting – and continues to shape all of the work we make today.

We created ‘Last Verse’ – a dual screen film that contrasts the time spans of the ancient Blue Mountains landscape and forests, the birds that live there, and the universe. Nearby, there is a coal mine, with trucks trundling up and down the main road. It is heartbreaking to see both the fragility, and a contributor to the environmental disasters, in one field of view.

Last Verse
Pale Blue Dot Collective
10m29s
2022

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VIDEO OF INSTALLATION

Of Immeasurable Consequence
Pale Blue Dot Collective
All Saints Church, Northamptonshire
2024

Of Immeasurable Consequence was created after a residency with Fermynwoods Contemporary Art in Northampton, England. We stayed in a forest and spent time in the landscape at night, looking at and listening to the life it contains.

Our installation was displayed in All Saints Church, Aldwincle, Northamptonshire. We wanted to bring daytime astronomy into the fore – so we filled the church with haze, which caught the light of Earth’s star as it came through the historic windows. There were sculptural elements signifying the Moon and Earth, and large scale photographic images of the night sky that we had taken in one of the darkest places on Earth, as well as Fermynwoods forest, illuminated by the Moon. A soundtrack filled the space with sounds of life on this planet.

‘Underneath the dark skies above, and through our human eyes, we observe the light of galaxies and stars, ancient light falling softly on our retinas. In the darkness, animals rustle through fallen leaves, waves crash around the coastlines of vast land masses, and tectonic plates grind and shift the lithosphere. Insects make their homes in narrow crevices, and great aquatic creatures meander through deep blue seas. In the darkness of the forest, one owl calls to another as star light reflects from the Moon onto the heaving trees below. In the great expansive darkness, Jupiter’s gravity catches occasional Earthly bound comets and the Moon pulls the oceans creating tides.

To be in the presence of this life, from the depths of the oceans to the upper atmospheric winds, is the consequence of a 13.8 billion year concatenation of events.

Through the darkness we can begin to see the cosmic significance of life on Earth.’

One of the photographic elements is currently on display at the RWAs incredible exhibition, Cosmos: the art of observing space – curated by Ione Parkin RWA.

RB: Pushing the boundaries of the medium is a natural part of the art making process because, in some ways, the artist is exploring the medium itself. What boundaries do you wish to push with the medium that you use?

LB: I see the mediums I use as flexible tools to create experiences with – and love experimenting with how different elements like light, darkness, sound, image and space interact with each other.

One boundary I am interested in pushing is time. I try to take audience members out of their usual frame of reference of time, and invite them in to consider it at different scales – from the smallest of moments to expansive cosmic time periods. I think this offers an openness which invites a slower form of reflection. Whilst the urgency of the climate crisis is what motivates my work, I believe in creating work that invites a more meditative approach – because for me, that is reflected in the most powerful works that I have experienced.

RB: What projects are you are currently working on or have coming up?

LB: I am currently Artist in Residence at Art Gene in Barrow-in-Furness for their 25 x 25 programme. I will be running a week of workshops with the local community as well as astronomers and ecologists. I visited the town last year and spent time walking along the coast of Walney Island. The weather was wild, and the landscapes were captivating. I am deeply inspired by the legacy of Art Gene’s determination to engage people and artists with the environment.

Last November I started a year-long residency with University College Dublin College of Science and Mayo Dark Sky Park in Ireland. I am working with scientists at UCD’s Earth Institute and Centre for Space and the dark sky rangers. Over the year, I will be returning to an isolated cottage in Wild Nephin National Park in County Mayo. I am spending time with the rangers there to understand the challenges of the climate crisis. I will also be speaking at and visiting UCD to explore with the scientists, how light pollution may be shaping our understanding of the climate crisis, and how we can better communicate the urgency and seriousness of the degradation of many of Earth’s environments.

I am also Artist in Residence at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge for two years. I collaborated with the IoA on my current exhibition ‘Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle’ at the Everybody Arts in Halifax. Recently, I curated an online panel with cosmologist Dr Anik Halder and Miranda Lowe MBE who is a Principal Curator and museum scientist from Natural History Museum. It was wonderful and I am hoping to do more of these events. I am presenting a talk at the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College, which will also include Dr Halder in March.

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Exhibitions

Louise Beer/ Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle at Everybody Arts
6 December 2025 – 7 March 2026

Cosmos: the art of observing space at Royal West of England Academy
24 January – 19 April 2026

Talks

Cosmos: The Art of Observing Space Art and Science Symposium
28 February 2026

Louise Beer/ Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle at Jesus College, Cambridge
09 March 2026

Further reading

Dark Skies: The transparency of night by Louise Beer

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https://www.louisebeer.com/

All images copyright and courtesy of Louise Beer

Art, Cosmos, Creativity, Light, Photography, Space