When artist and amateur astronomer Bettina Forget discovered barely two per cent of moon craters are named after women, she was dismayed. So, she harnessed her anger for a creative pursuit.
The lack of representation sparked Forget’s Women with Impact project, starting with drawings of the lunar craters. She studied the features and ridges through NASA images, using graphite to illustrate each crater named after a woman. Later, those drawings were turned into paintings.
She called it a “protest by celebration.”
“I’m not an optimist, but I expected it to be more than two per cent,” Forget said of craters named after notable women.
Three paintings depicting lunar craters from Bettina Forget’s Women with Impact series. Each canvas depicts a crater named after a woman, as seen through NASA images. (Christopher Kindratsky/Western Communications)
For the most recent iteration of her project, she painted in fluorescent pink, capturing the beauty and texture of the craters she saw through NASA probes.
“I wanted to translate the grayscale into the kind of paint that smacks you over the head. Pink is also a really political colour, super magnetic and attractive for many girls, but radioactive for boys,” Forget said.
Three of those pink paintings are now on display in Western’s McIntosh Gallery, part of an exhibition calledThe Life Cycle of Celestial Objects, Pts. 1 & 2, which runs until Dec. 9. Forget is featured alongside other contemporary Canadian artists, as well as York University students, all probing space exploration – and its ramifications.
Tackling tough topics
“Art makes difficult subjects approachable and accessible. It’s equally as critical and research-based as other disciplines, but because artwork can be so interesting to look at, it has the power to draw someone into a difficult conversation,” McIntosh curator Helen Gregory said.
Helen Gregory, curator of McIntosh Gallery. (Western Communications photo)
Indeed, visitors across campus are drawn in by the eye-catching work installed outside the gallery: Alouette, by Brandon Vickerd, showcases a car smashed by a satellite. The display is a big talking point on Western’s Kent Drive.
Vickerd worked with engineering students, who took sledgehammers to the car under his careful guidance.
“Everyone who sees it out there just loves it,” Gregory said.
It’s also a piece with deep meaning, shining a light on the increasing use and dependence on technology, with Vickerd using the satellite to represent a “modern-day Icarus,” she added.
Iqaluit artist Jesse Tungilik’s space suit, crafted from seal skin, is another popular fixture in the exhibition. He was inspired by the caribou hunting clothes his mother made for him as a child, an outfit he used to pretend was a space suit. The seal skin suit includes intricate bead patches, one depicting the Nunavut flag, made by artist Glenn Gear.
Gregory hopes the exhibition will spark questions and dialogue.
“I want people to think critically about why we explore space and how that fits into the Earth’s history of exploration,” she said.
“Historically there was a colonial mentality that extended beyond our terrestrial boundaries. Take the moon, for example. Bettina explores that in her work, critiquing the distinctly Eurocentric male legacy of naming and claiming celestial objects.”
The intersection of art and science
Forget will host a free, interactive workshop Saturday, Oct. 21, at Western’s Cronyn Observatory to mark International Observe the Moon Day. (Re)naming the Moon will invite guests of all ages to learn from Forget about drawing craters – no experience required – and rename their creations after women scientists or other role models. Registration is open.
“You can learn a lot of science by making art, specifically by drawing. If you take a pencil and sketch something, it’s etched into your brain,” Forget said. “You have to understand what it is you’re looking at, to draw it. That really helps people to understand what a moon crater is, and how different they all are.”
Forget described her work as a career at the intersection of art and science. It’s the same combination Gregory captures in The Life Cycle of Celestial Objects.
This installation, called Circuit Board Graveyard, was created by a team of York University graduate students and professor Joel Ong. It includes an interactive element since wires on several circuit boards can be moved and plugged in to alter the lights across the constellations. (Christopher Kindratsky/Western Communications)
Western engineering students helped Vickers to install Alouette, and York University graduate students, under the instruction of computational arts professor and artist Joel Ong, developed the work shown in McIntosh’s East Gallery. (The full exhibition fills both the East and West Galleries, the “parts one and two” referenced in the name.)
“I gave Joel and his team free rein. This was very experimental,” Gregory said of the York team’s contribution.
“I’m really happy with the exhibition and the project team. The response has been really positive,” she said. The opening reception was full and a steady stream of visitors have since come to the gallery to take in the artwork.
McIntosh’s location in the centre of campus helps to facilitate the blending of art and science that Gregory is seeking.
“There is access to people doing research on practically every subject you can imagine,” she said.
“It’s an incredible resource of intellectual activity.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
