The Immaculate Conception of Isaac Newton
AL and AL, Paula Fenwick-Lucas, Circle de John Critz, Sassoferrato
As The Fire Within Manifesto births a new beginning for Wigan, AL and AL open this exhibition with a visionary video work of a fetus growing in the womb. The Mother is pregnant with a baby who will gift human beings the ability to explain and predict the movements of all bodies in the universe, from falling apples to shooting stars.
The baby's name is Isaac Newton and with his equations, the future position of the planets can be predicted. His numbers work like magic, Humans apply them to put Humans on the Moon and Satellites into space. Isaac shows us nature is written in the language of mathematics, instigating a scientific revolution which underpins our modern world.
Isaac was born on Christmas Day in a barn. Pastoral paintings from Wigan Museum’s Collection, 'Girl in a punt with Swans nearby', and 'Girl Feeding Geese' by John Critz (1910) reflect the farm life this revolutionary baby entered in 1642.
Moving through the space you will see blackboards chalked with esoteric magical symbols. Isaac spent more of his research time working on alchemy than he did on gravity. Isaac’s mathematics gave birth to an equally esoteric system of communication depicted here, with the most famous modern equations written by physicists on blackboards which tell the secrets of the universe in numbers.
As you may know, Christmas substituted the Pagan light festival. Isaac himself transformed our understanding of light, his experiments using 2 prisms to observe that white light is formed from a spectrum of many colours. Here the spectrum leads to a masterpiece from Wigan Museum’s collection 'The Madonna and Sleeping Child' by Sassoferrato (1680).
Paula Fenwick Lucas’ new work for The Fire Within is an exquisite case assembled with alchemical intent; a case filled with instruments of magic and research materials, a private Universe of treasured objects and enquiry.
