TY - JOUR TI - We create the Universe: artists and scientists take on the Big Bang AU -Hannah Redler-Hawes PY - 2024 VL - IS - Spring 2024 KW - Albert Einstein KW - contemporary art KW - cosmology KW - Curating KW - exhibitions KW - experiment KW - Georges Lemaître KW - interdisciplinary KW - multi-disciplinary KW - space KW - Stephen Hawking KW - Time KW - transdisciplinary AB - Media not found Between October 2021 and January 2022 an ambitious combined art and science exhibition presented a unique object-rich cosmological story at the University Library of Leuven, Belgium, as part of the Kunst Leuven KNAL! City Festival 2021 (English: BANG! Big Bang City Festival). To the Edge of Time was a transdisciplinary[1] introduction for general audiences to one of the most famous and complex developments in science, the Big Bang theory. The exhibition presented artworks and science objects as equal partners that through curatorial placement and interpretation could fluidly convey key theoretical moments, materials, philosophical perspectives and ideas. The scientific story focused on how the groundbreaking work of the Belgian priest-astronomer Georges Lemaître bridged the insights of two of the twentieth century’s other leading European scientists, German physicist Albert Einstein and the British cosmologist Stephen Hawking. Objects from their lives and archives revealed their specific ideas and processes of thinking and discovery. Artworks from leading international artists brought new material, critical and conceptual dimensions and multisensory encounters. The exhibition was the result of a curatorial collaboration between the author, British contemporary art and transdisciplinary curator Hannah Redler-Hawes, and Belgian cosmologist and former collaborator of Stephen Hawking, Professor Thomas Hertog, of KU Leuven. As guest curators, they worked with Annelies Vogels, Exhibition Coordinator of the university and Wouter Daenen of KU Leuven Libraries, and others to form a closely collaborating curatorial team. To the Edge of Time was not only the first exhibition worldwide to explore Lemaître’s work through a transdisciplinary narrative, but also to place Stephen Hawking’s work in a broader historical context. In the trans- and interdisciplinary exhibition field, where new commissions and collaborations between living artists and scientists have been increasing, it was somewhat unusual for a cosmology exhibition in its reliance on material culture, concentration on historical art and science objects and its combining of these with presentations of recent contemporary art and advanced theoretical physics concepts. These combinations helped to convey parallel movements of thought where neither the art nor the science were presented as derivative to each other, a key curatorial ambition. This practice-based paper, offering Redler-Hawes’s personal reflections, discusses how the narrative evolved to define a shared language between the contributors. It considers, through a narrated walk-through of key object-artwork ‘constellations’, how the presentation generated new insights into different methods of enquiry, knowledge acquisition and making sense of our place in the cosmos, by bringing major themes in twentieth century science into dialogue with international artists working independently and in collaboration with science during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.[2] Note: Where images belong to the Science Museum Group this Journal shares them under a fully open access CC-BY licence (see our Open Access statement here https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/about-the-journal/). Where the image or work belong to a third party, this is indicated in the credit in the caption and full rights belong to the indicated party. N1 - For this article the term transdisciplinary is used to describe the overall exhibition which includes projects and processes that could be more accurately labelled ‘inter-‘ ‘cross-‘, or ‘multidisciplinary’ at different points. Ultimately the combined narrative materialised through collaboration between an art curator and a theoretical physicist, and transdisciplinary was the closest fit. See Triscott (2017, p 21) who writes: ‘A transdisciplinary approach focuses on cultural production as a collective and cooperative mode of inquiry and research, alongside understanding how art functions to exchange and create knowledge and meaning through exhibitions, publications, events and other experiences.’ N1 - For clarity and to avoid repetition, the author uses the term ‘objects’ to describe the science objects and ‘artworks’, ‘work’ or ‘pieces’ to describe artworks. N1 - Hertog, T and Redler-Hawes, H, with expert checker Farmelo, G, To the Edge of Time exhibition script one-liner, KU Leuven University Library 2021. N1 - Kunst Leuven City Festival is a large-scale city-wide cultural festival, organised by Kunst Leuven in partnership with KU Leuven. Each festival draws from the rich histories across the arts and sciences of Leuven’s world-famous researchers. N1 - See footnote 1 about usage of the term 'transdisciplinary'. N1 - Quote from KNAL! Festival (then entitled ‘Origins’) organising committee concept note, KU Leuven / Kunst Leuven, c. 2020 N1 - Quote from KNAL! Festival (then entitled ‘Origins’) organising committee concept note, KU Leuven / Kunst Leuven, c. 2020 N1 - Imagining the Universe at Museum M was curated by Jan Van der Stock with the Illuminare team at KU Leuven N1 - Thomas Hertog is a Professor and Head of Theoretical Physics at KU Leuven. N1 - Thomas Hertog’s recollection that the first question Hawking put to him at the start of a working relationship, that would continue to Hawking’s death, was “The universe appears designed. Why is it the way it is?” Unpublished conversation with Hannah Redler-Hawes (and in numerous talks and publications). For more on Hertog’s association with Stephen Hawking see Hertog, T, Brussels Times online 2 July 2023. N1 - Early on I did need to challenge myself on contributing to a narrative centring three European males given the likelihood of many hidden and excluded figures. The deep local connections, and the openness to a range of critical arts practices went some way to quieting this. At the same time as we were developing the show, the American cosmologist Professor Chanda Prescod-Weinstein concurrently published her book The Disordered Cosmos – a journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime and Dreams Deferred, which addresses similar subject matter simultaneously mapping intersectional inequalities in the processes and practices of science. N1 - In their book Art in Science Museums Rossi-Linnemann and de Martini discuss issues around ‘using’ art as a ‘translation tool’ to ‘visualise the science’ (2020, p 251). N1 - Tybjerg (2017, p 269) with reference to Pickstone (2000) describes these as objects which ‘materialise intersections between nature and our ways of comprehending it’. For more on this subject see the website on epistemic objects at the International Max Planck Research Network. N1 - Liliane Lijn in conversation with Hannah Redler-Hawes on video call, April 2020, unpublished. N1 - This is particularly welcome in a story which, in spite of the global scientific acceptance of the Western Big Bang story, could be reasonably challenged for the reasons noted in footnote 11. N1 - This selection was based on the author’s contemporary art curation practice. There are many expert art historians and researchers of twentieth century art who have dedicated careers to exploring these links. Their work was not exhaustively consulted in this context. Examples readers may want to explore include Malloy, V (ed), Dimensionism: Modern Art in the Age of Einstein, The MIT Press, 2018, and Miller, A, Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty That Causes Havoc, Basic Books, 2001. N1 - Ward Denys email interview with Hannah Redler-Hawes, July 2023, unpublished. N1 - Suprematism was described by Malevich as ‘The first movement of pure abstraction and pure feeling’. He started developing it from 1913. N1 - Malevich was listed as Russian in the exhibition but according to the Malevich Society website he was born in Ukraine to Polish parents at a time Ukraine formed part of the Russian Empire. As of 2023 his nationality is under review. See Harris, G (2023). N1 - See Tate Gallery online publication Tate Gallery Tate Shots from 17 July 2014. N1 - Einstein’s impact on wider art movements, or interpretations of them such as Cubism (which began before his new theories but is often referred to particularly in relation to multiple simultaneous perspectives), or the recently revisited ‘Dimensionism’ (1936, in which artists reacted to Einstein’s new conceptions of space-time) is widely discussed in art historical writings (see footnote 18). But I was most interested in Malevich for his focus on perspectives beyond Earth and parallel to Einstein’s thinking. N1 - This text is from the ‘Le Commencement du monde’ object label, Kröller Müller Museum website. N1 - As noted, research was not exhaustive. Neither art curator on the team (the author or Vogels) are experts in early twentieth century art. The author’s specialism is in later twentieth century and twenty-first century contemporary art, specifically digital and media art. Vogels’s specialism is as a medieval art historian. The team were also researching during lockdown when many professional colleagues across the globe were furloughed and inaccessible. N1 - Louvain-la-Neuve is a town in the municipality of Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, in French speaking Wallonia, Belgium. UCLouvain is KU Leuven’s sister university at Louvain-la-Neuve. ‘In 1968 the Catholic University of Leuven split into the Dutch-language Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, which stayed in Leuven, and the French-language Université catholique de Louvain, which moved to Louvain-la-Neuve in Wallonia, 30 km southeast of Brussels.’ Wikipedia (accessed 6 October 2023) N1 - The full title of the paper is ‘Un univers homogène de masse constante et de rayon croissant, rendant compte de la vitesse radiale des nébuleuses extra-galactiques’. Courtesy of UCLouvain, Archives Georges Lemaître, Louvain-la-Neuve. N1 - This was title was given by the scientific evaluator at Christie’s who had to calculate the value for it to be gifted to the nation under the Acceptance in Lieu scheme. At the time of writing it is now more commonly referred to as Stephen Hawking’s blackboard, or ‘Blackboard covered with Graffiti’ (on the Science Museum website). The use of the title here provides evidence for the exceptional speed with which the Science Museum Group mobilised the loan after taking possession, which the curators and exhibition organisers remain deeply grateful for. N1 - In 1965, Bell Laboratories engineers Arnos Penzias and Robert Wilson identified a persistent hiss from their experiment using a radio antenna which was identified as the faint relic radiation of the Hot Big Bang that Lemaître had predicted. N1 - In Hawking’s thesis he proves that if Einstein’s relativity theory holds, time must have had a beginning. N1 - This is taken from a November 2021 conversation between To the Edge of Time exhibition co-curators Thomas Hertog and Hannah Redler-Hawes and Alison Boyle and Jean-Andres Leon of the Science Museum Group in Leuven. Unpublished. N1 - See Wikipedia page on George Gamow (accessed 8 October 2023). N1 - Recounted by Thomas Hertog anecdotally in conversations and in multiple articles. N1 - See Hawking and Hertog in, for example, Gefter, A, New Scientist, 19 April 2006. N1 - See ‘Self-referential Eye in Cosmology in Some Strangeness in the Proportion: A Centennial Symposium to Celebrate the Achievements of Albert Einstein’, 1978, KU Leuven Libraries. N1 - See Hertog, T, Brussels Times online 2 July 2023. N1 - From Hertog, T and Redler-Hawes, H, panel text for Is time an illusion?, To the Edge of Time exhibition script. KU Leuven Library, October 2021. N1 - For more information, see artist video interview The Sapporo International Art Festival (SIAF) 2020, https://siaf.jp/siaf2020/en/news/artist/suzanne-treister/index.html (accessed 11 November 2023). N1 - Ward Denys, lead designer, Exponanza, in conversation with Hannah Redler-Hawes, private email correspondence July 2023. N1 - From Hertog, T and Redler-Hawes, H with expert checker Farmelo, G, To the Edge of Time exhibition script one-liner. KU Leuven University Library, 2021. N1 - Einstein and the Queen exchanged letters in August 1935. N1 - Arnold, A and Olsen D, 2003 (accessed via unpaginated extract online, March 2024). Here I assume the KU Leuven Libraries with its vast and rare collections can be considered equal to the Museum. N1 - Expert checkers on the final script were Professor Conny Aerts, winner of the 2022 Kavli Prize in astrophysics, Dr Graham Farmelo, award-winning science writer and author of the forthcoming authorised Stephen Hawking biography and Karen Verschooren, Head of Exhibitions, STUK House for Dance, Image and Sound, Leuven. N1 - Siska Waelkens is a science communicator at KU Leuven. N1 - Key messages are tools that are familiar to most museum and interpretation professionals, but not to people working in other disciplines, so it may be useful to describe them here. The key messaging document outlines the key messages the exhibition team wishes to convey to audiences. These may manifest as learning objectives or communicated concepts and ideas. It informs the interpretation strategy. The interpretation strategy outlines all of the methods and means for delivering the story and the key messages from objects, interactives and artworks to labelling strategy – for example, panel texts and object labels. It is a paper blueprint for the exhibition as delivered through all its media. It also identifies the tone of voice and target audience. N1 - Graham Farmelo, the author of the forthcoming authorised biography of Stephen Hawking [https://grahamfarmelo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Stephen-Hawking-Official-biography-announcement.pdf] (accessed 3 April 2024). N1 - To the Edge of Time was created in close collaboration with the UCLouvain Georges Lemaître archives, the Committee for Contemporary Art – KU Leuven, the Department of Physics and Astronomy – KU Leuven, Brout – Englert – Lemaître Center for Theoretical Physics, e-Media Research Lab-KU Leuven, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Estate of Stephen Hawking. PB - The Science Museum Group SN - 2054-5770 LA - eng DO - 10.15180/242108 UR - https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/we-create-the-universe-artists-and-scientists-take-on-the-big-bang/ T2 - Science Museum Group Journal