Scottish artist Katie Paterson’s artwork melds a poetic sensibility with philosophical and scientific inquiry. Spanning thematic explorations of nature, geology, technology, and cosmology, Paterson’s research-based projects often involve collaborations with specialists in astronomy, astrophysics, genetics, and nanotechnology. At its core, her work considers humanity’s place on earth and within the cosmos in relation to the concept of time.

I was initially drawn to one of Paterson’s artworks that I wrote an art story for, Vatnajökull (the sound of), 2007-8, where a live phone line was connected to an Icelandic glacier, via an underwater microphone submerged in Jökulsárlón lagoon. For the exhibition’s duration, anyone from around the world could call the number 07757001122 to hear the glacier as the ice melted. The strangeness, immediacy, even audacity of the project showcased another key aspect of Paterson’s work: bringing the viewer and the natural world into a close encounter, scaling what is often immense to an intimate and relatable dimension.

An especially poetic work in its simplicity and evocativeness, Ara (2016), features a string of festoon lights where each bulb produces a luminosity relative to the brightness of every star in a constellation. Ara forms part of a series recreating all 88 constellations, again creating a bridge between the cosmos and humanity; connecting us to what seems unknowable, distant and sublime.