Museums at the University of St Andrews

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Tell us a bit about yourself and your work.

Scientists have identified the existence of exoplanets, but we can’t see them! How do we learn and think about worlds that we can’t see? In recent decades we have discovered over 5000 planets outside our solar system. We’ve learned about new types of planets that we had no idea existed. Exoplanets are planets outside our solar system. We often can’t directly observe exoplanets but indirect observation techniques enable us to learn about them. Imagination and interdisciplinary thinking is fundamental to how we understand exoplanets; arts and humanities have a role to play in helping us to understand exoplanets. Alien Worlds at the Wardlaw Museum showcases this fascinating dialogue between art and science, demonstrating that both are important in developing our understanding of the universe.

Do you have any new work that you'd like to highlight?

At CYMERA we'll have a range of work that the audience can interact with. We will be asking visitors to imagine an exoplanet, describe it for us, and write a message to send to an exoplanetary civilisation. We'll have lots of examples from the exhibition on hand to inspire these responses.