What do underground transit tunnels have in common with outer space? Join a free virtual talk on Tuesday, July 19

UPDATE 7/20: In case you missed it, here’s a link to last night’s recorded conversation on YouTube-  https://youtu.be/R-SjfKM1SC0

Next Tuesday, July 19 at 6:30 pm PDT, join Metro Art commissioned station artist Mungo Thomson and subject experts for Underground Astronomy: Art, Geology and Cosmology, a free, virtual public conversation on Zoom about the unlikely but real crossovers between geology and cosmology. 

 

You can register for the free virtual conversation on Eventbrite.

 

 

Thomson was recommended by a community-based panel to create public artwork for the future Grand Av Arts/Bunker Hill Station, one of three stations currently under construction for the Regional Connector Transit Project. Two porcelain enamel steel murals he designed were recently installed on the subway platform hundreds of feet underneath downtown Los Angeles. Titled Negative Space (STScI-2015-02), the murals feature a stunning image of the Hubble’s 2015 composite photograph of the Andromeda (M31) galaxy.  

 

Building on ideas in the station artwork that couple geology and cosmology, Thomson will be joined by Marty Hudson, Director of Geotechnical Engineering for the Turner Engineering Group who worked on the tunnels of the Regional Connector, and Maurice Henderson, former Education and Public Outreach Engineer at NASA. 

 

Hudson will introduce the tunnel boring machine (also known as a “mole”), a worm-like machine used to build rail tunnels that traverses space and time as it moves age-old earth dating back to the Pleistocene era. Henderson will share his own experience with the Hubble Space Telescope, a human-made device that also reveals the past as it orbits earth capturing images that expand our understanding of the size, age, and growth of the universe. 

 

Learn more about the artworks for the Regional Connector Transit Project here. 

Learn more about Negative Space (STScI-2015-02) by Mungo Thomson here.    

Learn more about Metro’s art program, projects in the works, tours, events, publications and art opportunities at metro.net/art. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram., and sign up for our email list. 

 

Top: The Hubble Space Telescope. Photo by National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center on 2/17/1973; Below: A tunnel boring machine

1 reply

  1. hi steve 4o.billion dollars sepulveda lax line and 20. billion dollars west santa ana branch line abount the tunnel digging your team talk to dr. lucy jones to get ok from her to start the tunnel digging 2 lines.