Exhibition Closing Party and Q&A 'ARCHIVE AD ASTRA: Objects of Space Enthusiasm'

Our personal belongings are not only integral to how we construct, signpost, and make sense of our multiple individual and social identities, but they can also be the guardians of some of our most closely held, innermost longings. To be drawn to the stars — ad astra — among humanity’s oldest longings. 

Long have we stood on the ground looking up. Now, in what some call the Second Space Age, science fiction futures of travelling and living among the stars feels closer and more attainable than ever.

ARCHIVE AD ASTRA, co-curated by PhD candidate Adryon Kozel and her research participants, is an ethnographic exhibition of the personal belongings of space enthusiasts, alongside object biographies and interviews. 

Through the journeys, histories, and social lives of the objects themselves, in addition to the process of collaboratively designing and producing the exhibition, enthusiasm is explored as a social force or substance than can be observed and quantified as it touches each person’s life and relationships. The aim of ARCHIVE AD ASTRA is to make tangible and visible these energies that flow between people, places, and times, which are critical to how space enthusiasts create new multiplanetary identities and social worlds of living in space. The exhibition asks how one incorporates outer space into their everyday life by centring often ordinary yet precious objects which embody, represent, and facilitate dreams, beliefs, and experiences which bring space and possible futures closer to home.

ARCHIVE AD ASTRA will be on display in the foyer of the Anthropology department until December 15, 2023, and is free to visit during building open hours. The full catalogue can be explored on the virtual exhibition website at www.archiveadastra.com.

The Q&A and closing party will take place on 12th December. Please register to attend: https://ad-astra-closing.eventbrite.co.uk

The exhibition is funded by the IAS Octagon Small Grants Fund and the research is funded by the European Research Council grant ETHNO-ISS. The event is supported by the Centre for Outer Space Studies. All questions, please email Adryon at adryon.kozel.18@ucl.ac.uk.