An Anatomy of Mars, has grown out of collaborative fieldwork with a geoscientist and an art historian to conjure a feminist land art approach to the red planet.
Read further
An Anatomy of Mars, has grown out of collaborative fieldwork with a geoscientist and an art historian to conjure a feminist land art approach to the red planet. The first iteration of this work was on view at the LÁ Art Museum in Iceland in the vicinity of one of our field sites, continued to evolve for What is Us ands What is Earth at the Fruitmarket and will soon be shown at Kunstmuseum Thun in Switzerland in 2027. An Anatomy of Mars combines detailed drawings of extremophiles (life forms which exist and thrive in extreme environments and feel increasingly relevant as ‘family by choice’ as day to day life for queer communities is increasingly under threat), as well as new narrative hand drawn text works, alabaster sculptures and an expansive large-scale suite of watercolours sensing the palette of Mars.
Through this process, I have found myself thinking that privileging our bodies as living and rocks as dead ignores the plain fact that there is a delicate line between what is us and what is Earth. Last year, I went on a virtual field trip to Mars with a scientist who is looking for signs of life there. As we travelled closer to the surface, I was startled by how emotional I became – my eyes welled with tears as we saw remnants of vast alluvial plains; ripple marks recording flowing water; hexagonal mud cracks, and then – Olympus Mons – the largest volcano in the Solar System because on Mars – there are no plate tectonics – instead a continuous pipeline of magma to this volcano was fed and fed.
We talked about iron, that what made Mars the colour of wet plaster and raw salmon was the same iron that is in our blood. I thought of my father, who loved Carl Sagan – that we are made of star stuff – composed of minerals formed in the interiors of collapsing stars. So, how can we make a distinction between what is us and what is Earth.
Fruitmarket installation images: Ruth Clark
LÁ Art Museum installation image: Pétur Thomsen
With thanks to Claire Cousins, C. McAra, the Fruitmarket, LÁ Art Museum and UK Space Agency/Science & Technology Facilities Council.