Exhibition Details

The Minnesota Street Project Foundation, in collaboration with Gallery Wendi Norris, presents One Hundred Thousand Suns, Delhi-based artist Rohini Devasher’s first U.S. solo exhibition, running January 16–March 24, 2024. Her captivating and research-driven body of work chronicles a decade as an eclipse chaser and amateur astronomer. The focal point of the exhibition, the four-channel, 20-minute One Hundred Thousand Suns film debuts simultaneously in three continents: at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai, India in collaboration with Project 88; at Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, Netherlands; and at MSP Foundation in San Francisco, California. The San Francisco debut of One Hundred Thousand Suns at MSP Foundation is accompanied by the immersive, site-specific installation Latent Fields. As a counterpoint to this cinematic presentation, Gallery Wendi Norris is concurrently hosting an intimate show of Devasher’s two-dimensional works on copper at its San Francisco-based headquarters.

Within MSP Foundation’s state-of-the-art screening gallery, Devasher’s One Hundred Thousand Suns film explores four distinct dimensions of the Sun: material, ephemeral, personal, and geographic. Driven by more than 157,000 portraits of our nearest star, observed over 120 years, this audio-visual work centers on the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory in India, where every day since 1901 staff have recorded images of the Sun. Through the observatory’s archival material, combined with public-domain images from NASA and the artist’s own data — photographs, drawings, videos, and interviews with eclipse chasers — Devasher examines the complexities of observational astronomy and the ways in which ‘seeing’ is strange, wondrous, and more ambiguous than one might imagine.

Suspended from MSP Foundation’s towering vaulted ceiling, Devasher’s installation Latent Fields envelops visitors with expansive digitally printed fabrics on which the subatomic and the stellar collide. Devasher prints images and drawings of fast-charged particles and distant celestial bodies imbuing their silk material with the mesmerizing sheen of copper. A crossing through the body of a star: from the subatomic to the atmospheric, Latent Fields is A coalescence of material, visibility, scale, and temporality.

An exhibition at the Gallery Wendi Norris headquarters will focus on Devasher’s Sol Drawings, a series of embellished copper sheets. Once forged in massive stars, the Earth inherited copper from the universe more than four billion years ago. Transformed through interventions like fumage, acid wash, and embossment, these intricate and luminous panels invite close-looking and contemplation.

One Hundred Thousand Suns is free and open to the public. Open hours at 1201 Minnesota Street are:
Wednesday & Thursday: 3:00–7:00 pm
Friday & Saturday: 12:00–7:00 pm

Public Programs

Observing the Unknown: Rohini Devasher and Kim Beil in Conversation
Friday, January 19, 5:30 pm
Minnesota Street Project Foundation
1201 Minnesota Street
RSVP HERE

The Minnesota Street Project Foundation and Gallery Wendi Norris are delighted to present Observing the Unknown: Rohini Devasher and Kim Beil in Conversation. Delhi-based artist Rohini Devasher and Stanford art history professor Kim Beil will discuss their shared interests in the intersections of art and astronomy. This conversation is part of the programming for One Hundred Thousand Suns, Devasher’s first solo institutional exhibition in the U.S.

Kim Beil teaches art history at Stanford University and her writing appears in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Believer, and Cabinet, as well as many art magazines. Her book Anonymous Objects: Inscrutable Photographs and the Unknown will be released this winter by SBPH and MACK books.

Rohini Devasher (b. 1978, New Delhi, India) works with video, painting, printmaking, drawing, installation, and other mediums, to map the complexities of ecology, cosmology, and technology viewed through the twin lenses of wonder and the strange. The theoretical grounding of her work draws from the history of science, philosophy, speculative fiction, and eco-horror. Devasher holds a BFA in painting from New Delhi’s College of Art and an MFA in printmaking from the Winchester School of Art at the University of Southampton in the UK. She is co-represented by Gallery Wendi Norris in San Francisco, California, and Project 88 in Mumbai, India.

Video from this event is now available! WATCH NOW

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Pop-Up Planetarium x Rohini Devasher's One Hundred Thousand Suns
Saturday, March 16, 12:00–7:00 pm
Minnesota Street Project Foundation
1201 Minnesota Street

Discover the intersection of art, science, and solar observation in a unique experience co-presented by the California Academy of Sciences, Gallery Wendi Norris, and Minnesota Street Project Foundation. This all-day, family-friendly event features a pop-up planetarium and a variety of fun solar-themed activities, all in the midst of Rohini Devasher's large-scale exhibition One Hundred Thousand Suns.

We usually think of space as empty, but there’s a lot going on out there! In The Sun and Space Weather, a live 15-minute long show from the Academy of Sciences, a planetarium presenter will guide visitors on a journey to learn about space weather, solar storms, magnetic fields, and more! We’ll explore how these invisible events affect us here on Earth and how scientists study the Sun’s activity and influence.

In addition to the planetarium show, family-friendly eclipse-inspired activities will be available, including crafting your own pinhole eclipse viewer, a variety of space-themed coloring sheets, and more.

Register for free HERE.

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Borrowed Light: Conversations Across Art & Astronomy
Thursday, March 21, 7:30 pm
Live online video conference
REGISTER HERE

Both science inquiries and art share a quest for pattern and meaning. How do we observe time and ourselves within the universe? What are the ways we think about observation?

In this live online conversation, artist Rohini Devasher and Berkeley cosmologist Satya Gontcho A Gontcho will think together about the modes and methods of observation, the ways of paying attention, and the importance of storytelling in the practice of artists and astronomers. This free event is presented by the Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India (SACHI).

Satya Gontcho A Gontcho, Ph.D. is a French cosmologist working at the forefront of the efforts to build the largest three-dimensional map of the observable universe ever made by mankind in order to shed light on the nature of dark energy, the force responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe. As post doctoral Research Associate at the University of Rochester she was the recipient of the Giuseppe Sciacca International Award in 2019 for scientific excellence. Dr. Gontcho A Gontcho was also featured as one of the Forbes 30 under 30, in 2019. In her spare time, she uses her expertise as a scientist and as a performance artist to explore the various ways storytelling can be adapted to reach a broad audience and bring to the public’s attention, the wonder of the universe in which we live.

Acknowledgements

One Hundred Thousand Suns and Latent Fields is presented by the Minnesota Street Project Foundation in collaboration with Gallery Wendi Norris.

One Hundred Thousand Suns was commissioned by Data as Culture at the Open Data Institute (ODI) as part of an Evidence & Foresight online artists’ residency 2021-22. Part of the research for this piece was made possible as part of Five Million Incidents, 2019-2020 supported by Goethe Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi, in collaboration with Raqs Media Collective.

Museum Catherijneconvent in Utrecht, Netherlands will debut Devasher’s One Hundred Thousand Suns within the exhibition The Genesis of Science, on view from February 21 through June 2, 2024.

The Minnesota Street Project Foundation would be unable to present world-class exhibitions without the support of art lovers like you. Consider making a donation to support future projects.