Voyager's Record

Paulina Brelińska

Point of departure. The exhibition "The Voyager's Record" refers to traveling as such a form of mobility, which results from the internal need to see inaccessible, undiscovered, lost and mysterious places. Its title refers to the name of two gold-plated disks - The Voyager Golden Record - which was placed in the 1970s on board of spacecraft launched as part of the Voyager program. There were some specific recordings and photographs on these disks that were supposed to show the life cycle of the human species on Earth to the extraterrestrial viewers. The exhibition showing the latest works created by young artists figuratively refers to the untamed dreams of seeing unknown lands and what is more the cosmos. Artists’ projects pay attention to the images and elements of nature that interest them during their “expeditions” (expedition is translated as “mobility organized for a specific purpose”). Such concept situates the artist in the position of a researcher/explorer who archives/documents reality and nature for a specific purpose. These objects are deprived of the features of the “artifact” (translated as “incorrect element of the scientific research result”). On the contrary, they become a specific scientific record depicting life on Earth. During the nineteenth century, when the ideological trend called romanticism was developing, the author of the book “COSMOS. Alexander Humboldt's physical description of the world” noticed that nature is a constant object of the discoverer's fascination. When observing the works of contemporary artists, the aforementioned glorification of nature seems to be still super important. Humboldt wrote: "Children's joy at the sight of the particular figures of the countries and the closed seas, as geographical cards show us; the desire to see the constellations of the southern sky that are not on our firmament; images of palm and Lebanon cedars in the holy scriptures; they are all things as an example cited, and which are capable of awakening in the young soul unreasonable desire to see distant lands.” 1 The exhibition is a story about spiritual travels, as well as about feelings that accompany the search for one's own nature. Staying in a state of suspension, properly distant from reality, very credible memorabilia arise - telling a lot about the Earth itself. However, it is not so much its scientific portrait that is important but the presentation of our planet from the perspective of the internal experiences of its inhabitants. Paulina Brelińska

According to Wikipedia: When Darwin's Journal was published, he sent a copy to Humboldt, who responded:

"You told me in your kind letter that, when you were young, the manner in which I studied and depicted nature in the torrid zones contributed toward exciting in you the ardour and desire to travel in distant lands. Considering the importance of your work, Sir, this may be the greatest success that my humble work could bring." In his autobiography, Darwin recalled, reading "with care and profound interest Humboldt's Personal Narrative" and finding it one of the two most influential books on his work, which stirred in him "a burning zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the noble structure of Natural Science."

Darwin's sister remarked to him

"you had, probably from reading so much of Humboldt, got his phraseology and the kind of flower French expressions he uses." (Wikipedia)

I uploaded these four specific pages of this book on purpose. Taking perception as a research method, I decided to show them firstly.

I find a specific connection between them and the whole concept of the exhibition.

Aleksander von Humboldt KOSMOS.

Charles Darwin Origin of Species

and the description of a project

link with a presentation of a book There is nothing there anyway

homepage

RC exposition concept by Paulina Brelińska, all links and media are the part of curational research which I did during final year project preparation Voyager's Record / Rejestr podróżnika . 2017-2018.

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