Earth, Water, Night

Publication to accompany exhibition of the same name at The Stone Space, 17 February – 12 March 2023.

• 24pp booklet of exhibition imagery.
• inset 12pp booklet featuring exhibition text, ‘But who can picture what the future holds?' by Victoria Walters and exhibition overview.
• 2 postcards.
• Edition 30.

Earth, Water, Night was a solo exhibition by Julie F Hill comprising photography, printmaking, sculpture and embroidery that proposes a mixing of earth, water and night as an alternative model for understanding the universe. Holding the poetic and alchemical in contrast to the objective and scientific, astronomical data of deep space folds into Earth’s deep time, whilst light and shadow gather in pools of water.

French philosopher Gaston Bachelard likens water to a giant mirror through which the universe catches its first glimpse of itself. Leading from this thought, Hill engages with ideas of Animism and Panpsychism: viewpoints that suggest consciousness and/or spirit is a fundamental property of all matter.

Hill engages with newly released data from the James Webb Space Telescope, focusing on intricate and intelligent structures such as planetary nebulae, lenticular ring galaxies and deep field surveys.

Night is of particular importance to Hill, for it’s through its darkness that we can peer back into the depths of cosmic time. Whilst darkness often indicates uncertainty and lack of knowledge, Hill believes it’s through the darkness when we can be most perceptive to the interconnectedness between earth and cosmos. Through it we
are able to extend our ideas of kinship and consciousness of what constitutes nature.