Distant Orbits
2019, hand crushed ferrite magnets, linen thread, rare earth magnets, 3-channel HD video 9:45 minutes. Site-specific installation of Distant Orbits in the main gallery at The Lock-Up, Newcastle, as part of An Immeasurable Distance.
Distant Orbits is a site-responsive installation that unfolds as a weblike structure of linen thread held in tension by small magnetic clusters, forming a distributed field of convergence throughout space. Extending the earlier iteration developed at Penrith Regional Gallery, this version was presented at The Lock-Up as part of the solo exhibition An Immeasurable Distance, reconfiguring the work as an immersive spatial environment in which the structure was suspended just above head height, allowing viewers to move through and beneath it. A network of thread extended across the space, with magnetic clusters forming nodal points of convergence, while a three-channel video installation transitioned continuously from white through blue to black, bathing the environment in shifting light. In this iteration, the viewer becomes embedded within the field, moving through a suspended system of relations that unfolds around the body, suggesting a cosmological structure held in tension—expansive and all-encompassing, encountered from within. The title is drawn from the poem When the Years Take the Stars Away by Carol Jenkins, from her book Fishing in the Devonian (2008).