Yin-Ju Chen: Extrastellar Evaluations II at CFCCA
Polly Checkland Harding
This exhibition is the result of a co-commission by CFCCA, Liverpool Biennial and the Taiwanese Ministry of Culture, for which acclaimed Taiwanese artist Yin-Ju Chen has created an audio-visual installation accompanied by objects, texts and drawings. Exploring the boundary between art and science, Extrastellar Evaluations II – A Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (the exhibition’s full title) attempts to convey the notion of a solar system consciousness. It is the second instalment of a three-part project; the first section was presented at FACT and Cains Brewery in Liverpool, and the final iteration will be shown as part of ambitious new exhibition No Such Thing As Gravity at FACT.
This section of the project draws on Galileo’s book A Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which compares the Copernican system, a model of the universe in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun, with the Ptolemaic system, an ancient model in which the Earth is at the centre of all the celestial bodies. Chen focuses on the ‘dialogue’ between the two projects, incorporating other cosmological ideas and teachings in an artistic exploration of the relationship between cosmic events and human behaviour.
