Sacred architecture and the celestial body

presented at STATION Gallery, Sydney. Sacred architecture and the celestial body is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.

hand pierced copper, silver, patina treatment, three part sculpture, engraved copper plate aquatint print, graphite on paper

Sacred architecture and the celestial body investigates the cultural significance of celestial navigation and astronomy, merging speculative astral architecture with historic celestial technologies. The exhibition has been informed by three months of research, development and drawing while on residency at the Sydney Observatory, where Taweel engaged with the Powerhouse Museum's instruments of celestial navigation and astronomy. Taweel was particularly drawn to the ‘astrolabe’, an ancient astronomical instrument used in Islamic and European cultures as both a scientific and spiritual navigational tool. In its simplest form the astrolabe is a metal circular object containing multiple rotating discs and rulers, and often decorated with inscriptions and patterns.

Joining current discourse on the cultural, political, and spiritual considerations for future migration into space, Taweel questions how celestial migration of the future will negotiate the construction and representation of the sacred, to satisfy the desire for a diversity of cultural landscapes and infrastructure in places newly inhabited by the celestial body.

Astro Architecture, 2023

engraved copper plate, aquatint prints

triptych 78 x 106 cm each

presented part of Archive Sites + Savvy Contemporary, Berlin

Astro Architecture sits within a future landscape. A speculative landscape of migration into Space, a movement of peoples and spiritualities working to decentre the colonial past, present and future of Space travel.

Astro Architecture proposes architectural affirmations of the sacred for future Space migration and pilgrimage. A vision of sacred architecture to contain spiritual knowledge systems, and places for community gatherings of ritual and ceremony to build relationships of sustainability between the non-living and living landscapes of a future in Space.

Astro Architecture is informed by the astronomical and celestial navigation instruments and technologies of the Arab sciences and the impact on the movement of people for migration and pilgrimage, as well as the significance of the architectural representation of the sacred for this movement. The print series reflects upon existing celestial navigation instruments of the Arab Sciences as a source of shared cultural histories, memory, identity, colonised and decolonised collections of movement, which contributes to the potential decolonising of Space activity and visions of a multicultural, progressive, and equitable future in Space.

The application of the heritage engraving techniques used to embellish astronomical instruments, and the recording and mapping of astronomical knowledge has been employed by the artist to hand engrave the large copper plates for the prints. The three sacred architectural forms reference the astrolabe, quadrant and sextant, astronomical devices used to measure the distance between two objects and of immense spiritual virtue. The pierced patterns on the forms are inspired by the intricate embellishment of the astrolabe, an ancient astronomical instrument used in Islamic and European cultures as both a scientific and spiritual navigational tool and the most advanced pre-telescope technology.