Spirals

2023 Semi-Finalist for The American Prize

Where are you right now?

You stand in the room where you are, looking at your surroundings, and based on your perspective, you’re standing still. You’re stationary; in one, unmoving place.

But what if you took a step back - a BIG step back?

If you could observe yourself, along with the entirety of the Earth in your view, you would be spinning in a circle, albeit a very large, 24,900-mile circle.

Take another step back. Observe yourself not just rotating around the Earth, but the Earth also revolving around the Sun. Your circle got bigger and more complicated.

Each time you take that step to a bigger place to observe, your path through the universe gets more complicated. It’s with this thought experiment in mind that I reflected on the existential absurdity of New Year’s resolutions and reflections.

As a culture, we’ve chosen a day on the calendar, as defined by the relationship between the Earth and the Sun, to be a starting point. But if you go a step bigger, even that starting point is ever-changing, due to the solar system moving through the Milky Way galaxy. Our galaxy is in a dance, in concurrent orbits with the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies.

From these levels of complexity, this work was born. Each movement represents a step to a larger viewing platform. It starts simply, with the Earth’s rotation that gives us our days. The second section is the Earth’s revolution around the Sun, defining our years. Into the third section, we have the never-ending spiral created by the Milky Way turning about its central supermassive blackhole. Next is the local group, the dance between the Milky Way, Andromeda, and Triangulum. Finally, we have the Laniakea supercluster; a beautiful collection of thousands of galaxies, all moving together.