Suitable for ages 16+

Essential Information

Type Talks and tours
Location
Royal Observatory
Date and Times Friday 18 October 2024 | 6.30-7.30pm
Prices Adults: £10 | Students & Under-25s: £9

10% off for Members. Not a member? Join now

Women have been central to astronomical discoveries, but their work has often been underrecognized. How can we make these stories more widely known and accessible to an eager public?

Join us at Royal Observatory Greenwich for an inspiring panel discussion exploring the hidden stories of pioneering women in astronomy. 

The panel features three contemporary artists whose work responds to the legacies of the Women Astronomical Computers at the Harvard College Observatory. These Harvard pioneers – including Williamina Paton Fleming, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin – made groundbreaking discoveries space discoveries, including celestial objects, foundational laws, and the composition of stars.

Historic black and white photograph of Women Astronomical Computers at the Harvard College Observatory
Women Astronomical Computers at the Harvard College Observatory, circa 1925. From left to right: Harvia Wilson, Agnes Hooven, Antonia Maury, Ida Woods, Annie Jump Cannon, Mary Howe, Margaret Harwood, Evelyn Leland, Arville Walker, Lillian Hodgdon, Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin, Edith Gill, Margaret Walton Mayall, Mabel Gill, and Florence Cushman. (image and information courtesy of Harvard Plate Stacks)

All three artists will share their work and insights on creating new works from a historical collection to bring these histories alive. Stella Feehily is the playwright of Hampstead Theatre’s current production, The Lightest Element. Aura Satz is a London-based artist, filmmaker, and documentarian who created the installation artwork “Her Luminous Distance.” Anna Von Mertens is an artist and author of the recently published book, Attention Is Discovery: The Life and Legacy of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt

This event offers a unique blend of history, art, and science, shedding light on the essential roles women have played in advancing our understanding of the cosmos. 

The event is co-organized by the Royal Observatory Greenwich and the Harvard Plate Stacks, part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. The evening's discussion will be moderated by Thom Burns, Curator of the Harvard Plate Stacks.

Please note that this show involves flashing lights.

Book tickets

Members book here

Meet the panel

Stella Feehily is a playwright and screenwriter. Duck, Stella’s first full-length play premiered in an Out of Joint and Royal Court co-production at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, before playing at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, the Royal Court Theatre and The Peacock Theatre, Dublin. Since then she has written O Go My Man (Royal Court Theatre) Catch (written with four other female playwrights) at the Royal Court, Dreams of Violence (Soho Theatre), Bang, Bang, Bang (Royal Court) and This May Hurt a Bit (a play about the National Health Service), which toured nationally before opening at the St James Theatre, London. Other works include  How To Get Ahead In Politics - Arts Theatre, and adaptations of Love And A Bottle for LAMDA's long project, Coppélia for Ballet Ireland and Claudio Tolcachir’s The Omission of the Family Coleman, performed at the Theatre Royal Bath in March 2019. For Irish National Opera she wrote the libretto for Close, a short opera composed by Hannah Peel.

Radio plays include Sweet Bitter for Lyric FM, Julia Roberts’ Teeth for Radio 3 and All of These Things for International Arts Partnership.

Television includes developments with BBC3, Blue Ink, Expectation and FilmNation. She is developing a film with Picture Locked Pics about surfing set in 1980s Ireland.

An image for 'Meet the panel'

Meet the panel

Aura Satz is an artist who works in film, sound, performance and sculpture. She has performed, exhibited and screened her work at Tate, London; Hayward Gallery, London; 2016 Biennale of Sydney; NTT InterCommunication Center, Tokyo; High Line Art, New York City; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Kadist, San Francisco; Sharjah Art Foundation; Rotterdam Film Festival; Onassis Stegi, Athens; and Sonic Acts, Amsterdam. She has presented solo exhibitions at the Wellcome Collection, London; Hayward Gallery project space, London; John Hansard Gallery, Southampton; George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY; Dallas Contemporary; ARTIUM, Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo; Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, Titirangi; and Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, MA. She recently completed her first feature film 'Preemptive Listening' (2024), which premiered at MoMA, showed at Tate, and won the New Vision award at CPH:Dox festival. She has taught at the Royal College of Art since 2014.

An image for 'Meet the panel'

Meet the panel

Anna Von Mertens is a visual artist and author. She received an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Public Understanding of Science and Technology book grant in support of Attention Is Discovery: The Life and Legacy of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, published by the MIT Press in 2024. The book is an expansion of Von Mertens’s 2018-2019 exhibition at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, which travelled to the University Galleries of Illinois State University and Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College in 2023. She received a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she studied dark matter as a structuring force in our universe, and a United States Artists Fellowship in Visual Arts. Her labour-intensive artworks use material intelligence as a lens to see science and history and have been widely exhibited at institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Berkeley Art Museum; RISD Museum; Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery; Aspen Art Museum; Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, and National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design in Oslo, Norway. The artist is represented by Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, Oregon.

An image for 'Meet the panel'

Meet the panel

Thom Burns is the Curator of the Harvard Plate Stacks at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. He has worked with the collection since 2019 and was appointed Curator in 2022, focusing on creating and inspiring a new generation of new ideas and discoveries through preserving and enhancing access to the histories and legacies within the Plate Stacks. This year, the Harvard Plate Stacks team launched a new scientific and historical database, StarGlass, which provides access to over 1.2 petabytes of astronomical data while highlighting the historical contributions of women astronomers. Building upon nearly a decade of work and advocacy by previous curators for the preservation of the collection, he was able to modify destructive methods in the digitization project of DASC@H before its completion in 2024, after nearly 20 years. Thom has also expanded the scope of the collection by acquiring modern and contemporary materials, including artwork, recordings, ephemera, research, and complementary archival collections about the Plate Stacks or the legacies of the Women Astronomical Computers. His team’s efforts have also centered on elevating marginalized voices and balancing the collection’s scientific and historical value. Before joining Harvard, Thom worked in various museums and special collections in the UK and the US. He has specific expertise in Victorian collections, where he has developed new methods for digital access that have expanded the reach of these collections to new audiences. He received his Master’s degree from the University of Glasgow in Technical Art History and his Bachelor’s degree from Yale University in the History of Art.

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Plan your visit

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This event will be held inside the Peter Harrison Planetarium, part of Royal Observatory Greenwich. Enter via the Astronomy Centre gate (pictured).

Please aim to arrive at least 15 minutes before the event is due to start. The Observatory is situated at the top of a steep hill within Greenwich Park, so make sure you give yourself enough time to walk up (and enjoy the view!).

Getting to Royal Museums Greenwich

As this is an evening event, Greenwich Park will be shut once the session has concluded. Visitors must leave the Park via minibus, which will drop off at St Mary's Gate (at the northwest end of the Park).

Please be aware that this minibus is not wheelchair accessible. If you need to make alternative arrangements, please contact Bookings at bookings@rmg.co.uk or call 0208 312 6608.

Event partners

The event is co-organized by the Royal Observatory Greenwich and the Harvard Plate Stacks, part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.

Main image: a scene from Stella Feehily's The Lightest Element (image by Mark Douet)