Events

Current and Upcoming

Exhibition: Celestial Navigation

January 31, 2025 - May 26, 2025
10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
America/New_York
Butler Library, 535 W. 114 St., New York, NY 10027 Rare Book & Manuscript Library (6th Floor East)

Celestial Navigation is curated by Jeannie Rhyu (MFA'26; CC'17) and combines recent works on paper by Columbia Visual Arts MFA students with materials from the collections in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. The exhibition is open to the public Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm. For non CU-ID access, please contact Courtney Chartier, Director of RBML, at [email protected].

Humanity has always looked up at the night sky and drawn inspiration from the stars,
creating stories to explain their meaning and origins. Early ideas about the structure of the
universe found Earth at the center of everything, surrounded by the Sun, the planets, and the
fixed plane of stars. In this worldview, auspicious or unfortunate events were ascribed to the
influence of the stars, with rare events like eclipses or supernovas viewed as particularly
significant. At the same time, the motion of the stars across the night sky became useful to early
civilizations, marking the timing of important events like harvest and religious observances.

By the end of the early Middle Ages, Islamic navigators had discovered how to determine
their latitude from the position of the pole star using the kamal, an early precursor of the
astrolabe and sextant that were widely used during the Age of Discovery. Astronomers including
Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei proved through a combination of mathematical theory
and observation that the Sun was at the center of the solar system, with the Earth and other
planets orbiting. At the same time that humanity was learning to navigate and chart our planet,
we also began to understand our place in the solar system and, eventually, the cosmos.

The artworks and artifacts included in Celestial Navigation allude to the sense of wonder,
discovery, and self-determination inspired by the stars. Rare manuscripts from Ptolemy,
Chaucer, and Galileo and antique star charts, atlases, and celestial globes from around the world
are joined by works on paper by current Columbia Visual Arts MFA. The conversation continues
through the millennia as the stars continue to inspire questions about the origins of life and the
shape of the universe.


Participating Artists:
Akira Kawahata
Arel Lisette
Bale Creek Allen
Devon Chen
Francisca Brunet Bayon
Francisco Javier Ramirez
Grethell Rasua
Harold Garcia V (El Quinto)
Jeannie Rhyu
Leena Kim
Liz Schneider
Sarah Huffard
Sharon Cheuk Wun Lee
Timothy Bair
Yshao Lin
Zelmira Rizo

Contact Information

Rare Bok & Manuscript Library