"Where do we come from?
Much like the stars scattered throughout the night sky, we seemingly come from everywhere and from nowhere: from chaos, from a silvery egg, from ice, from earth and saliva, from mud, from tears."
~Carol Emmons
I had the privilege to view artist Carol Emmons' installation of Cosmogony 2.0 before it officially opened. I walked through the gallery in a state of awe. There were colored gels over the ceiling lights and lines of text crossing every which way. Never before had I seen this gallery's ceiling space artfully utilized, and I was excited. Furthermore, the objects she chose to display gave me vivid memories of walking through the Galileo Museum on Florence, Italy a little over a year ago during my semester abroad. I left the space enveloped in a sense of wonder and mystery.
However, my science boner quickly went flaccid upon attending Emmons' talk. It became clear that she didn't really understand her work either. Hers was a situation in which I admired her more with less understanding about her artistic intent. The cradles on tracks filled with trinkets were elements of the installation that I had previously mused over. Post lecture, I found them cliched. The ladder that led into the skylight of the space lost its mystique after hearing Emmons' explanation that "there was a hole, and I just wanted to put something in it." Perhaps her work fell short as a result of the enormity of her subject: the genesis of the universe, cosmogony itself.
