WORKS – Fiona Annis

Montreal based artist Fiona Annis explores the relationship between astronomy and photography in her installations.

When did you decide to incorporate elements of astronomy in your artistic practice and why?

Light and time have been a focus of my work since I began working with photography. In parallel, light and time are fundamental concerns of astronomy. When I began to work with antiquated photographic processes, such as wet plate collodion, I also began researching the history of photography. It was at this point that I became aware that the development of optical lenses used in astronomy greatly informed the emergence of the photographic apparatus. I have since been exploring the parallels and links between astronomy and photography, and their common interest in the unknown or incomprehensible.

Can you describe your artistic method? What do you use to create your artworks?

Desire, curiosity, reading, and experimentation are the foundational elements driving my practice. Each project that I begin involves learning new processes and discovering new means to realize the work. I suspect that it is the cultivation of patience and resilience combined with my stubborn nature that sees the work realized. I am also enormously indebted to the many conversations and exchanges that shape and inform my work.

“The stars are dead but their light lives on reflects the impulse to scavenge amongst obsolete technologies and to re-animate these dated apparatuses with the after-image of dead stars. In a dark exhibition space data processing triggers countless lightbulbs to the rhythms of exploding supernova, and the sounds of stars being swallowed by black holes slowly erodes the slick surface of magnetic audiotape. The exhibition engages in the interpretation of specialist knowledge and the potential of repurposing archival stock.”