Vital Signs

About

Judith Alder is a British visual artist with a multi-faceted practice, working across a range of media and processes. Central to her work is a fascination with biology, physics and the history of scientific endeavour and science fiction. Alder is interested in how an understanding of life, its origins and evolution can help us think about the future of our rapidly changing world.

Curated by Sanna Moore, Director at the RBSA Gallery and contemporary art curator, the works shown will include wall-based works, moving image and sculpture. Alder assembles a body of connected works grounded in research and inspired by accessible science communicators and visionary writers like HG Wells, Kazuo Ishiguro and Stanislaw Lem. The work builds on ideas such as Carl Sagan’s proposal that ‘we are literally made of star stuff’ where all the elements which form the planet and everything in it (including us) have originated from a single cosmic event, and that all known life has evolved from a universal common ancestor. Alder is preoccupied with the interconnectedness of all things and the impact of contemporary science now and in the future.

Alder said: “Having become interested in these interconnections I now see them everywhere in physical, biological, economic, political, digital and social systems. All of these individual networks, natural and manmade, seem to be interlocked with each other and economics, politics and environmental issues are good examples of how these interconnections manifest and affect our lives directly.”

Vital Signs comprises works in film, collage, sculpture, drawing and sound. During the exhibition, Alder will do a durational performance drawing within the gallery over a number of days referencing Charles Darwin’s drawing ‘the tree of life’.

As a body of interconnected works, the exhibition queries how we feel about science and technology and the difficult ethical dilemmas created through scientific progress, often presenting fictitious scenarios, somewhere between sci-fi and fairytale. The media used reflects different stages in Alder’s creative process, where she adopts a continuously repeating cycle of reading, learning, drawing, writing and collecting objects and images. Eventually, a bringing together, assembling and editing of collected material occurs, and something new is created.

Vital Signs is funded by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.