31st November 2018 – Open Night
Left – Twin Dome interior art installation for Open Night Nov. 2018. Right – Detail of installation.
On Saturday the 31st of November 2018 the interior of the Twin Dome was used as a public exhibition space for the first time. This was also the Observatory Open Night, a long established annual feature during the winter, and a chance to show the Shine collaboration alongside the working telescopes of the principal observatory buildings.
By this time the Shine project had expanded pretty dramatically as a result of invitations to show the work coming from around the UK. The work which was exhibited was initially the original installation from 2015 but, as new opportunities to show the work came in, Tim set about making more and more new art which was increasingly abstracting and teasing out new variations of the original emission line series.
In that first use of the Twin Dome as an exhibition space we faced some big challenges of a long neglected building with no power supply and an interior that desperately needed a lot of care and attention. However, the one big advantage of an after dark exhibition was that with a lot of batteries and careful positioning of lighting, our visitors would be unaware of all the peeling paint and rusty surfaces that remained hidden in the dark. That was an issue for a later date.