Artist Spotlight: Kate Bernstein on conversations with the past
Bound in rich shades of blue, red and gold, Measuring the Heavens (2020) is a work by book artist and printmaker Kate Bernstein.
It comprises four parts; a box, a folio (hinged cover), an inner book with a concertina of paper that stretches to over a metre, and a folded paper listing that cites sources.
The beauty of this piece is that every carefully crafted component tells us a story. Embedded in the book cloth, the paper, and Bernstein’s delicate screenprints are hours and hours of research and an extraordinary journey through the history of astronomy and those who chose to document it.
We spoke to Kate to find out more about this project:
Hi Kate, thanks for taking the time to talk about your work. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your practice?
I make limited edition books and share these with the public at artist book fairs and exhibitions. I have work in public and private collections including the Bodleian, the British Library, the Royal Astronomical Society and the Centre for Fine Print Research in Bristol.
I mainly work in screen print which I find to be very versatile, and I like its industrial heritage. Making is central to my practice, and I try to remain flexible during the process of creating an edition or unique book so that the way it looks and feels in the hand as it is developing influences the final outcome, sometimes unexpectedly. I’m very aware as I am making the book that when it is finished it will pass from my hand into someone else’s. The way that it feels, opens and closes, reveals or hides the content, is a considered part of the work.
Your practice often focuses on creating contemporary responses to historical artworks and events, can you tell us about that?
I have a passion for things medieval, I’m curious about how people perceived their world in that period and how they expressed themselves visually and in literature. I was fortunate enough to do an MA in Medieval Studies at Bristol University which brought some rigor to my enthusiasm. In my practice, as a contemporary artist, I am not interested in pastiche or sentiment but am interested in exploring how that period has shaped our own and making reference to our shared life experiences despite the centuries between us. One of my more recent books, Eve’s Diner, gives a feminist perspective to the story of Eve and has her running a diner with an orchard out the back. This was inspired by the misogyny of late medieval images of Eve.
What was it that drew you towards astronomical texts? Can you tell us about your research and your collaboration with Sian Prosser, RAS Librarian and Archivist?
In 2018, Ione Parkin RWA (curator of Cosmos: the art of observing Space) and Gillian McFarland, whose project Creativity and Curiosity brought together art and astronomy, were invited on a research visit to the Royal Astronomical Society’s library. They were keen to work with other artists, and this invitation was extended to me. After the initial visit I was funded by the Arts Council to continue my research with the intention that I would bring artists books to a wider audience.
Sian produced the most extraordinary books for me to look at. Mostly printed in the 16th and 17th centuries they often took months or years to produce, some with hand-coloured wood engravings and moving parts. Of particular note was Peter Apian’s Astronomicum Caesareum (1540) which includes volvelles, movable measuring devices, threads and seed pearls used to convey movements within the solar system.
I became increasingly interested in the library itself, in the relationship of these early books to each other and in the discourse amongst astronomers made possible both by printing and publishing discoveries and theories. Having made three small books which explored the role of early printing in the communication of astronomy, I then asked Sian if she would be willing to collaborate to create a book about the library.
Sian led me away from a romantic view of the books contents towards an understanding of the role of data. We talked about the significance of movement in the library, that the collection is not static and is made of many elements.
The results of these conversations are directly seen in Measuring the Heavens; data links the pages in the form of images of printed strips of astronomical books, the movement of the library is echoed in the folding in and out of the book and the creation of several parts which come together to make the whole. Also, in the choice of the main image as the constellations Serpens (pictured above) appears to move through the heavens.
There are many more references to the collection and our conversations in Measuring the Heavens, some direct and others hidden. I’m delighted that Measuring the Heavens is now a permanent part of the RAS library, housed in the collection amongst the books that inspired it.
