Exhibitions
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The Truth Is Out There
12 Mar – 14 Aug 2022
Free
Joe Merrell, still from The Eyes Are Always There, 2016
Ronnie van Hout, Ersatz (Alien), 2003. The Dowse Art Museum. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
Nayda Collazo Llorens, Re_Sightings, 2016/2022. The Dowse Art Museum. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
Joe Merrell, The Eyes Are Always There, 2016. The Dowse Art Museum. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
Drawings of UFO witnesses by Peter Stichbury, 2016-17. The Dowse Art Museum. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
Brett Graham and Rachael Rakena, U.F.O.B., 2006. The Dowse Art Museum. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
Hany Armanious, Rabbit, 2006. The Dowse Art Museum. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
Ronnie van Hout, Ersatz (Alien), 2003. The Dowse Art Museum. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
Joe Merrell, The Eyes Are Always There, 2016. The Dowse Art Museum. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
Caryline Boreham, Disco Volante (detail), 2016/2022. The Dowse Art Museum. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
Ronnie van Hout, Argosy (detail), 2022. The Dowse Art Museum. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
Emil McAvoy, Soft Launch (Towards an exopoetics of a crop circle phenomenon) (detail), 2011-2022. The Dowse Art Museum. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
Ronnie van Hout, Argosy, 2022. The Dowse Art Museum. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
The Truth Is Out There at The Dowse Art Museum, 2022. Photo by Mark Tantrum Photography.
In 2021—in the middle of a global pandemic—the US Congress ordered the Pentagon to release a report about their official knowledge of UFOs. Although the report was largely unsatisfying and offered no real extra-terrestrial explanations, it confirmed that the US military had documented instances of unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAPs) which could not be fully explained. If the truth is indeed out there, perhaps it isn’t where we thought it was.
The Truth Is Out There looks at contemporary artists’ fascination with UFOs, alien abductions and other unexplained phenomena, during a time when belief in extra-terrestrial life is more accepted in the mainstream than ever before. With a touch of nostalgia for The X Files sensation of the 1990s, this exhibition grapples with larger questions of conspiracy theories, paranoia and misinformation. We want to believe…but how do we decide what to believe, let alone who to believe?
Featuring the works of Ronnie Van Hout, Joe Merrell, Peter Stichbury, Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Caryline Boreham, Brett Graham + Rachael Rakena, Emil McAvoy and Hany Armanious, The Truth Is Out There will take you on a journey to outer space which passes by the mysterious Kaikoura lights, crop circles in the UK and the hypnosis couch of abductees Betty and Barney Hill.
Related Press Articles:
I want to believe: Let's send our artists to greet the spaceships (Stuff)
The Truth Is Out There (RNZ interview)