We acknowledge Australia’s First Nations as the first astronomers, and the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation on whose ancestral lands and under whose skies Sydney Observatory stands. We pay our respects to Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land, past and present, and through them to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Female Computers Les Calculatrices

Produced for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN, in conjunction with Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 2020.

Created by Lily Hibberd (artist and writer), Toner Stevenson (Honorary Affiliate, History, at the University of Sydney), and Din Heagney.

We seek an alternate imaginary of the skies. We begin with the constellation of Female Computers who worked in over 20 observatories around the world from the late 19th and early 20th centuries to create a catalogue and map of 6.5 million stars. Thought of as mere calculators, their labour was largely overlooked and eventually forgotten when the endeavour was finally abandoned. For the second constellation of Gendered Stars, we peer into the skies and the deep distant past to understand the cosmos from a feminine perspective. In the final constellation of Unbounded Seeing, we look closer to home – at the extraordinary work of women and LGBTIQ+ astronomers and others who have laboured and fought for our knowledge of the universe.

Journey to the constellations here.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.