Opening: Saturday 6 September 16:00 – 19:00
The exhibition Unfolding the Universe brings together several new artworks by Ashley Zelinskie.
In the front space, Fabric of Spacetime brings the awe of deep space to Earth through monumental silk and textile works inspired by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Drawing from celestial icons like the Pillars of Creation and Rho Ophiuchi, the exhibition features floor-to-ceiling raw silks hand dyed with natural pigments and intricately deconstructed robotic weavings of the Carina and Tarantula Nebulae. These flowing, airy textiles mirror the ephemeral beauty of nebulae while evoking the invisible currents of spacetime. The pieces act as portals, dissolving the boundary between fabric and cosmos. Here, the universe is not only observed, it is touched, draped, and held.
In the back space, visitors enter Unfolding the Universe: An ESA Webb VR experience: a projection-mapped environment that bridges physical and virtual space. A new VR experience, created in collaboration with ESA, invites viewers to ascend a spiral stairway lined with portraits of European Webb scientists, each voice-activated to share their role in the mission. At the center, an animated rocket launches upward as viewers climb, culminating in a portal to Unfolding the Universe, the VR work first presented at ONX Studio in 2022. Surrounding sculptures draw from Webb’s imagery to ground the immersive narrative in tangible form. This room extends the fabric of spacetime into story, motion, and memory, honoring not just what we see in the cosmos, but who made that vision possible.
