Until the advent of artificial lighting 200 years ago, darkness and night had been the universal human experience and the one for which we and all life on earth evolved. Recent excavations at some prehistoric sites in the UK have revealed evidence that megalithic stone monuments thousands of years old may have been visited at night or in low light. Recent studies have shown that the effects of rapidly increasing light pollution have deleterious effects on human, plant, and animal life.  Please join us on Thursday, October 12th, at The Fruit in Durham for an installation that evokes the artist’s nighttime contemplation and photographing of such prehistoric ruins at night as part of her recent Fulbright year in Cornwall. In 2021/2022 MJ Sharp went to Cornwall, UK, on a Fulbright Scholar Award to collaborate with nocturnal ecologist Dr. Kevin Gaston at the Environment and Sustainability Institute at the University of Exeter on the issues of light pollution and the implications of the rapid loss of night and darkness. 

Photograph: MJ Sharp