Mount Wilson Observatory Presents: Sarah Rosalena's Standard Candle

About

Mount Wilson Observatory and Carnegies Observatories are proud to collaborate with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Art+Technology Lab and present Standard Candle by Sarah Rosalena, opening in May 2023. Rosalena, with roots in the Wixarika tribe, is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher based in Los Angeles, and will stage her exhibit in the Museum of Photon Technology on the ground floor of the 100-inch telescope dome at Mount Wilson Observatory.

Standard Candle features a series of woven and beaded textiles made using computer code and is based on archival glass plates captured by Mount Wilson’s 100-inch Hooker telescope in the early days of the Observatory. The exhibition is organized around a body of work developed by the artist in response to the labor of female “computers”—women who worked at observatories at the turn of the 20th Century—undertaking the painstaking tasks of graphing data and performing calculations and predictions to advance Western scientific thought and the imaging of space.

EXHIBIT & EVENT INFO

Special Sneak Preview: Friday, May 12, 7:30-11:30pm @ MWO’s Museum of Photon Technology on the ground floor of the 100-inch telescope dome.

This evening begins with a tour of the Standard Candle exhibit in the Museum of Photon Technology, guided by LACMA Art +Technology Program Director Joel Ferree. Afterward, guests will have an evening of observing the night skies through the 100-inch telescope.

$125 (only 40 tickets sold in total for this preview event): https://www.mtwilson.edu/events/arts-the-observatory-cosmic-night-standard-candle-may-12

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Exhibition Opening & Reception: Friday, May 19, 7:00-11:30pm @ MWO’s Auditorium

To celebrate the opening of Sarah Rosalena's Standard Candle at Mount Wilson Observatory, LACMA Art + Technology Lab grant recipient Sarah Rosalena and science and technology anthropologist Lisa Messeri will discuss the exhibition in the context of origin and knowledge through feminist and anti-colonial methodologies. In addition, they will explore connections to computing shown throughout the exhibition of textiles and beadwork. A reception will follow and a night of viewing on the 100-inch telescope.

FREE (reservation required): https://www.mtwilson.edu/events/arts-the-observatory-standard-candle-conversation-telescope-viewing-reception

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General Hours: Saturdays and Sundays, May 20/21, May 27/28, June 3/4, June 10, June 17/18 (Exhibit will not be open Sunday, June 11). 1:00-5:00pm @ MWO’s Museum of Photon Technology in the 100-inch telescope doom building.

FREE (no reservations necessary): https://www.mtwilson.edu/events/arts-the-observatory-standard-candle-exhibition