This summer, an exhibition inspired by the timeless poem The Star (more widely known as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) by writer Jane Taylor (1783-1824) will send space enthusiasts, young and old, on a cosmic odyssey.
Opening today at Firstsite in Colchester, the birthplace of Taylor and her poetic masterpiece, Lunar Lullabies, commemorates the 200th anniversary of the Essex writer's passing. It traces the artistic journey of Taylor's nursery rhyme and its profound influence on contemporary media, including comics, video games, and pop culture hits like Will Smith's "I'm Not a Star" and Nicki Minaj's "Starships."
The exhibition transforms the gallery into an immersive playscape of imagination and discovery, featuring interactive space objects, immersive extraterrestrial landscapes, and robot sculptures. Visitors are able to touch and discover objects ranging from meteorites and asteroid rocks to Lego Star Wars sets and bring their own cosmic creations to life.
Showcasing stunning artworks, historical artefacts and contemporary cultural nods, visitors discover how science, art and imagination have intertwined over the centuries to shape culture and our collective fascination with distant galaxies.
The exhibition is the result of a series of workshops with Firstsite youth programme YAK and families participating in Firstsite's innovative Holiday Fun programme – where they provide families facing financial challenges with fun, free days out full of art and sport along with a free family meal. YAK members and Holiday Fun families have made their own work, alongside producing collaborative artworks with commissioned artists.
The exhibition features a range of books and poetry by Taylor and her sister Ann to kick off a journey through the next 200 years.
The Star became hugely successful and a mainstay of childhood imagination, in part because of the etchings of the nursery rhyme. This art technique was impacted by science and space visions. A range of 19th-century etchings of comets in the night sky features in the exhibition.
There are a wide array of multimedia projects on display, all connecting space with the imagination. These include fantastical futuristic spaceship animation rooms by Mark Garlick, paintings of space rockets that move when viewed, and a ceramic work by British icon Grayson Perry with Alien Baby (2008) inspired by a maternity ward that he likened to a spaceship.
The work of Colchester-based Peter Elson (1947-1988), an illustrator who spent a career bridging childhood wonder of space with explorations of the future, is prominently featured. Decades of science fiction paperbacks from the 20th century have Elson's renderings on the cover, featuring planets, spaceships and star systems. Hugely influential on a new generation of sci-fi depicters, with brightly coloured backgrounds and sleek designs, he has been widely credited for providing the visual aesthetic to early video game productions in the 1990s.
Contemporary artists also show how the artistic obsession with what lies beyond the Earth's sky continues today. Essex-based artist Jackie Burns is a Fellow of the International Association for Astronomical Artists; her earlier works include science fiction book cover designs, and throughout her career, she has created work based on the scientific reality of space travel, such as through portraits of astronaut Tim Peake, as well as popular culture imagery such as characters from Star Wars. Burns led some of the workshops to develop the exhibition and her depiction of one of the most iconic spaceships in human history will feature; the one that fulfilled Blake's dreaming and took humankind onto the moon. The acrylic work Saturn V, Apollo 11, on Crawler to Launchpad 39A consists of different-sized circles of various colours that slowly reveal the image the longer you look.
In the 21st century, artists can now be found alongside scientists working towards space exploration, and the exhibition includes a number of paintings produced by British artist Matthew Turner during his residency at NASA.
A number of artists whose practices have developed at Firstsite will also be featured. The futuristic Colchester landscapes of local artist and Level Best alumni Henry Linstead will be shown, as well as work by those who attend Holiday Fun, including models of science fiction and gaming figures by the artist known as 'S' whose room installation which features over 1000 models, will immerse visitors into a world of dinosaurs and creatures whose fate was changed by an asteroid from space.
In total, the exhibition features over 100 artefacts and more than 100 artworks, the majority by artists from East Anglia, which explore our need for discovery, from the dreaming and wonderings of poets to the reality of scientific endeavour. Through a changing programme during the exhibition run, art and content from community groups and activities will also be on display. With this ambitious approach, Lunar Lullabies at Firstsite charts how the first nursery rhymes laid the foundations for the current stories that can be found in today's comics, video games and consciousness, with Colchester at the centre.
Firstsite Director Sally Shaw says, "Lunar Lullabies shows the true power of art and creativity—charting the journey from Jane Taylor's imagination in 1806 to the realities of scientific exploration today. By combining art and science, the exhibition brings STEAM to the heart of Colchester, using art as a method of learning and discovery to help us connect with the science of space exploration in a meaningful way.
"Working with local families and young people to make this exhibition has brought new voices and ideas, which are reflected in the vibrant and diverse selection of works – some which will spark nostalgia and others which will immerse you in a whole new futuristic world. Most importantly, this approach has created a really fun, inclusive space where our visitors can let their imaginations run wild!
“We hope Lunar Lullabies will inspire everyone to explore their creativity, with the knowledge that something imagined today may spark a creative chain reaction that ignites future explorations and discoveries, much like Jane Taylor's influence has done for centuries."
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Electric Light Orchestra - Mr Blue Sky.
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