When we gaze at the sky, what are we looking at? And how far does our gaze carry?

Comparative mythology highlights striking cross-cultural similarities, which strongly suggest that the core of most, if not all, ancient mythology has planetary origins. Scholars generally define myth as a form of sacred history that attempts to explain the origin of the world and its various cultural institutions.

The uprooting of our lives from specific local cultures and places through voluntary migration or forced displacements has (it could be argued) contributed to the waning of our abilities to locate ourselves. Consequentially, a sense of place, the geographical component of the psychological need to belong somewhere, perhaps remains remote to many of us. “I wonder whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each of us may find our own again” is a need to locate a personal sense of place and history.

A simulated cartographic approach to drawing moved by the poetry of the night sky's constellations to render the particulars of our celestial surroundings. These marks on paper spheres (globes) invert notions of planet and sky and, paradoxically, depict both a very familiar place and no place in particular and, in terms of actual and psychological space, are both near and far.

“I wonder whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each of us may find our own again”. 2007. Ink on paper.