Canberra Museum and Gallery has taken the universally-popular practice of stargazing to another level with its latest exhibition, Outer Space: Stromlo to the Stars.
It’s a big show, set in the corner galleries carved out from the former Hermitage restaurant area and it centres on an immersive installation best summed up by new ACT arts minister Michael Pettersson as, “a pretty darn cool interactive Supernova exhibit”.
Outer Space is an example of the CMAG’s aim to connect with the wider Canberra public by taking a closer look at key ACT establishments, seen earlier this year in the display of historic objects from the old Royal Canberra Hospital.
Jointly curated by ANU astronomer Brad Tucker and Hannah Paddon from CMAG, the exhibition is partly chronological, tracing the origins of the observatory back to the early 1900s when it was merely a twinkle in the eye of founding director Walter Geoffrey Duffield, who persuaded the government that we needed a new Australian observatory to “fill a gap in the chain of astrophysical observatories round the earth”.
There are thematic motifs in the show as well, such as women in space, and a section on the community of astrophysicists and their families who lived on the mountain, including a window on Australian sculptor and assemblage artist Rosalie Gascoigne, the first female artist to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale, married to astronomer Ben Gascoigne.
The show celebrates the 100th anniversary of Mount Stromlo Observatory and Tucker says it “captures not just the groundbreaking science but also the spirit of the Mount Stromlo community…this place embodies resilience and innovation”.
Mount Stromlo has been home to many technological breakthroughs and Nobel Prize-winning scientists, not least Canberra’s Prof Brian Schmidt, who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics with Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess for providing evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
Schmidt was quick to head for the exhibition when it opened recently and was on hand for the launch of Djara, a new project exploring First Nations peoples’ millennia-long connection with the stars.
There’s a chronological backbone to Outer Space, which traces the history of Mount Stromlo’s transformation into a global centre for astronomical research through the 20th century, including the period during World War II when its workshops contributed to the war effort by producing gun sights and other optical equipment.
The show features interactive digital experiences, objects, historical photographs and an arcade-style game called Guide Star based on real lasers that destroy space debris.
The piece de resistance is that “pretty darn cool” digital installation, Gravitational Weave, where you can plunge yourself into the role of a super nova.
In a genuine coup for the CMAG, the Farnham Telescope has been relocated for the first time since 1928 to the gallery in Civic. Constructed in Dublin in 1886, the Farnham was used to examine the changing brightness of planets and fluctuating brightness of stars and is the only telescope to survive the 2003 bushfires intact.
The exhibition, Paddon tells me, is designed to engage a wide audience and the interactive installations are suitable for ages 11 to 25, although I saw quite a few much older people playing with them.
The show itself will be backed up by stargazing events, astronomy talks and hands-on workshops for schools, and programs for visiting students from years 5 to 10, where they can learn about the history and science of astronomy through hands-on activities such as operating a working telescope.
While visiting the exhibition recently Prof Schmidt said that when he had arrived here from Harvard in 1995 at age 27, Mount Stromlo was already a great centre, thanks to the vision of its many directors.
“It was a place of outstanding people… it was ultimately people who made Mount Stromlo what it is today”, he said.
Outer Space: Stromlo to the Stars, Canberra Museum + Gallery, Civic Square until November 16. Free.
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