22.06.18 – 30.09.18
LIFE AT THE EDGES
Harsh environments are laboratories and workshops for the researchers, artists and designers in LIFE AT THE EDGES. From arctic expeditions to deep sea discoveries, this exhibition is about exploring frontiers and limits, and boldly pushing the boundaries of space, humanity, technology, biology, and determination.
As our own planet grapples with increasingly precarious environmental conditions, how could the constraints of extreme environments lead to creative new methods, microorganisms, and technologies? And who will lead our society in our efforts to discover, study, and colonise these frontiers?
This exhibition opens at a time that is oddly reminiscent of that bygone era when society lionised explorers like Amelia Earhart and Ernest Shackleton. That epoch of exploration for exploration’s sake, unencumbered by utility or (sometimes) common sense, was legendary. But it had downsides, too: problematic notions of bravery, colonialist perspectives on ‘civilisation’ and a requisite wealthy leisure-class of explorers and patrons. Still, where we once had prop planes and bathyspheres, we now have reusable rockets and remote-operated submarines. Instead of a nationalistic race to the Moon, we have asteroid mining startups and privatised Mars missions; and larger-than-life explorer-entrepreneurs, like Elon Musk, blurring the line between adventurer and venture capitalist.
Highlights
Curators
Dr. Mary Bourke, Geomorphologist, Department of Geography, Trinity College Dublin.
Prof. Peter Gallagher, Professor in Astrophysics / Associate Dean of Research, Trinity College Dublin.
Miha Tursic, Waag Society & co-founder of Cultural Centre of European Space Technologies.
Prof. Andy Wheeler, Chair of Geology, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University College Cork.
Melodie Yashar, designer, co-founder and member of SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture).
Exhibits
