SYDNEY.- The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences is collaborating for the first time with Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest to present an exhibition exploring our fascination with gravity and its invisible governing of the world’s movement, the shape of space and the flow of time.

Gravity (and Wonder) is presented from 3 September to 27 November 2016 at Penrith Regional Gallery, bringing together the work of leading international and Australian contemporary artists who examine gravity through their practice, including renowned American artist Richard Serra and a new commission by Australian artists David Haines and Joyce Hinterding.

Director of the Penrith Regional Art Gallery & The Lewers Bequest, Dr Lee-Anne Hall comments: “In Gravity (and Wonder) audiences are offered a three-month journey of discovery, where art, science and creativity are brought together in a exciting program including exhibition, education, artist and scientist residencies, performance, public symposium and star-gazing.”

This exciting new collaborative exhibition includes a sculpture by Richard Serra; installations by Australian artists Sandra Selig and Amy Joy Watson; paintings by Mabel Juli and Rusty Peters from Warmun, Western Australia; kinetic sculptures by Marley Dawson; and video work by Japanese artist Hiraki Sawa.

Australian artists David Haines and Joyce Hinterding have been commissioned to create a world-first event where by the artists dropped a sound from the edge of space. Their new work presents vision and sound captured in the process of sending a payload with recording instruments via latex weather balloon to 33700 metres above the earth. At very low pressure the balloon bursts, a parachute partially deploys, and allows the instruments to rapidly descend to the earth. On exhibition are two large format screens adjacent to each other. The screens show two edited excerpts 16 min duration. One screen shows the ascent (slow and lyrical, the arc of the earth appearing) the second screen shows the rapid descent (this piece is particularly exciting to view as we observe the blackness of the upper reaches of the stratosphere become blue sky, and see the earth and its form grow immense. The Aeolian sound of the instrumentation is particularly haunting and is clearly heard when standing in front of the screens.

Gravity (and Wonder) presents a vibrant three-month program with a range of events, workshops and programs extending the themes of the central exhibition. The project collaborators are joined by education partner, Western Sydney University, bringing its Penrith Observatory and academic expertise into the project alongside science events to intrigue the community.

The works in Gravity (and Wonder), curated by Penrith Regional Gallery Director Dr Lee-Anne Hall and MAAS curator Katie Dyer, explore gravity through scientific investigations and artistic explorations: as phenomena and effect, mass and attraction, motion and acceleration, time and space and ultimately transcendence alongside rare scientific instruments and inventions, specialist objects and archival material from the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences.