OCTOBER 27 2022
LECTURE | SESSION LEADER
Rome | Italy | Europe 

Michael Jones McKean will be giving a talk at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy for the LSST @ Europe4 conference. During his session, McKean will open up his research and thinking into the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, building upon the concept of its parallel life, one seated within a group of objects that through time have expanded our capacity to ‘see.’ Seeing not only in the optical sense, but as related to a much larger and emergent cosmovision of the world, and our lived experiences within it.

 

Artist Rendering of Vera C. Rubin Observatory with a swath of light beaming across the evening sky

SEPTEMBER 22 2022 | Equinox
SITE ANNOUNCEMENT
Cerro Pachón & Tololo | Chile | South America 

Michael Jones McKean Studio, in deep cooperation with Fathomers in Los Angeles, is pleased to announce Cerros Pachón & Tololo as the first site in McKean’s long form planetary sculpture sculpture, Twelve Earths. Nested above the cloud line in Chile’s Andes Mountains, Pachón and Tololo, are twin peaks gathering a cluster of intensely powerful observatories. Taken together, they are among the most mythic and powerful scientific instruments humans have made; a complex of 20 international astronomical telescopes, including the famed Victor M. Blanco Telescope, SOAR, Gemini South, as well as the one of the most powerful observatories on Earth, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory which will see “first light” in 2024.  

For full press release information:  Español | English

Or, for additional information, please contact:
office@twelveearths.com



SEPTEMBER 2022
ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE, VERA C. RUBIN OBSERVATORY 
Cerro Pachón & Tololo | Chile | South America 

This Fall, coinciding with the announcement of Twelve Earths’ first site, Michael Jones McKean will inaugurate a 5-year Artist-in-Residence with Vera C. Rubin Observatory on Cerro Pachón in Chile’s Andes Mountains. The position will enable McKean to work at the summit along with scientists, technicians, and systems engineers. McKean’s efforts will produce a body of work and writing, culminating in a sculptural work at the summit that will sensitively consider the uses and histories of the site.


AUGUST 10 2022 
LECTURE | SESSION LEADER
Tucson, Arizona | U.S.A. | North America 

At the Rubin Project & Community Workshop held at Dove Mountain’s Ritz Carlton in Tucson, Arizona, Michael Jones McKean led a session titled, “The Vera C. Rubin Observatory as Cultural Metaphor.”  The session zoomed out from the conference’s more granular and highly technical panels to consider Rubin more speculatively within a lineage of aspirational objects that humans have gathered together to make over time.