In Path of Totality, on view at Cristin Tierney Gallery through October 24, 2026, Janet Biggs follows solar eclipses across time and terrain. She went to Antarctica, where fog blocked her view of the total eclipse of December 4, 2021, and to the Amazon's headwaters in Peru, along the path of an eclipse that crossed the region in 1858. The exhibition brings together video, artifact, and a forthcoming performance on time dilation, drawing on her collaborations with scientists and dancer Vinson Fraley and on her relationship with her mother. Here, Biggs discusses astronomy and spirituality, landscape as protagonist, and why she considers none of her pieces finished.
Janet Biggs as Interviewed by Rachel Dalamangas
This work approaches the Moon with both the seriousness of astronomy and the reverence of religion. How do you approach existential questions in a way that accommodates both?
My work relies on research and collaboration, especially across the sciences. I am deeply invested in questions about things unknown—to me personally, and to humanity. Many of the scientists I’ve had the honor of working with, both experimental and theoretical, speak about existential questions, about their relationships to spirituality.
For me, hard science and spirituality are entangled. Data is a language, like poetry, that is enlightening and elusive; a language that demands imagination for communication and translation. I’ve always been interested in both parallel and inverse structures: the romance of finding a connection to my mother during a total solar eclipse, and the computations of alignment and gravitational forces.
