UC Berkeley Space Sciences Labs and Leonardo/OLATS co-sponsor artist-in-residence Joanna Griffin

Leonardo/ISAST and OLATS welcome artist Joanna Griffin as the new artist-in-residence at the Space Sciences Lab at UC Berkeley. Joanna has received the Art and Space Science Fellowship at UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory

http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/arts/ACEfellow/information.html

The initiative is funded by UC Berkeley and Arts Council England's International Artists Fellowship Programme with support from Leonardo/ISAST, OLATS, the Leonardo Space Arts Working Group and NASA. Selected artists receive specialist support and funds for practice-based research, accommodation, food, travel and a small stipend while working at UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory.

Artists who have been awarded the fellowship have include Liliane Lijn and Semiconductor.

Joanna Griffin is an artist based in London who makes short films and installations. She studied at the University of Edinburgh and in New Mexico and teaches at the art academy in Winchester, England. She has exhibited at Galeria del Grabado de Chile, Santiago, The Bond Gallery, Birmingham and Worcester City Museum and Art Gallery.

Statement from the artist: "I'm interested in the orbital environment, our remoteness from it, its invisibility and that access to it is largely determined by scientific, research, government or military institutions. One of my lines of enquiry has been to investigate ground-based facilities that have a close connection with spacecraft that orbit the planet, so my interest in the fellowship is primarily its connection to satellites and how the Lab is characterizedÊ by the associations of the satellites, for instance at SSL with a key focus on solar readings. I'm looking for opportunities to work alongside people with a direct connection to objects, exploration and research in the orbital environment."

Some of the sites Joanna has visited or stayed in the course of her work include the Very Large Array (of radio telescopes) in New Mexico, the Jodrell Bank telescope, Las Campanas and Las Silla observatories in Chili, ESTEC, the European Space Agency in Noordwijk, The Netherlands and the Dundee Satellite Receiving Centre.