Rohini Devasher’s Solar Poetics makes a case for wonder

The Kodaikanal Solar Observatory (KSO) in Tamil Nadu, India, has quietly and diligently been recording the sun every single day for the past 125 years, weather permitting. Their records are older than the nation itself, covering 11 solar cycles in 1,57,000 images. This archive also serves as an important chart of technological progress, shifting from hand-drawn diagrams of sunspots to glass photographic plates and now to modern scientific data gathered by powerful telescopes and sensors. This is the work of generations—with up to four generations of the same family devoting their lives to the mission at KSO. Although human effort at this scale is not unique to astronomy or astrophysics, the yawning timescale the cosmos operates on—millennia, light-years, infinities—inspires a kind of devotion and ambition that shocks humanity out of its usual quarterly, seasonal or annual outlook. This devotion, along with the beauty of the cosmos and its human record, is what Indian artist Rohini Devasher has tried to capture in her career as a contemporary artist, as well as in her loving pursuit of amateur astronomy. Now, Devasher’s exploration of our sun and its relationship with our civilisation comes together in the exhibition, Solar Poetics, on view at the Bruce Museum in Connecticut, USA. The museum’s vision—an education and creative harnessing of art and science—to drive curiosity—aligns seamlessly with the artist’s, culminating in an exhibition that celebrates the connections between the two fields and humanity and the cosmos.