MFA alum Sarah Rosalena is rethinking astronomical observatory instrumentation through feminist and anti-colonial perspectives. Rosalena, an assistant professor at UCSB, has been using digital weaving and Indigenous beading to reinterpret telescopic images in textile form for Standard Candle. The body of work premieres this week at Mount Wilson Observatory. Staged in the observatory’s 100-inch Hooker telescope, the exhibition uses instrumentation and darkness as a lens for examining women’s labor and colonialism, and their role in the advancement of western scientific thought and the imaging of space.

Standard Candle is presented by LACMA, and will be on view at Mount Wilson Observatory in Los Angeles, CA from May 6–June 4, 2023; plan your visit here. There will be a Conversation, Telescope Viewing, and Reception on May 6 from 7:00–11:30PM.