An exploration of monumentalism, memory, and the role of speculation through the intersections of scientific enquiry and science fiction
Action Potential Sony, Sonya Dyer, Somerset House (2023). Photo by Tim Bowditch
Alt text: A large darkened room with two connected screens showing an abstract shape alongside a figure sitting against a blue background. The screens cast a blue light thought the room. Through two doorways on the right you can see an adjoining room with a large sculpture occupying the floor space.
Sonya Dyer’s Hailing Frequencies Open is an ongoing artistic research project that intersects Nichelle Nicols’ astronaut recruitment activism, the dubious genesis of ‘HeLa’ cells and the Greek myth of the Ethiopian Princess Andromeda (who became both a galaxy and a constellation) – combining social justice with speculation, fantasy with the political. HFO builds a world (through film, performance and sculpture) wherein the HeLa cells are still in Space – and travelling towards Andromeda. Andromeda metaphorically embodies the reclamation of the neglected stories of Black women of science and myth. The project has had many outputs and iterations, most recently, in the form of two solo presentations, Three Parent Child, at Somerset House, and The Ready Room, at Primary.
Lucy, Sonya Dyer, Somerset House (2023). Photo by Tim Bowditch
Alt text: A darkened room is shown with two adjoining rooms. The walls are rough showing bare brick in parts. A large sculptural form fills the floorspace of one room and cascades into the next.
Sonya Dyer’s installation, Three Parent Child, at Somerset House, is the final stage of Dyer’s Andromeda trilogy, as part of her ongoing project Hailing Frequencies Open. This project researches and reimagines the history and radical potential of human space travel, exploring the intersections between scientific enquiry and science fiction. In her artistic research, Sonya weaves influences including Star Trek, the legacy of HeLa cells, and mythology, to engage with ongoing conversations around monumentalism, memory and the role of speculation.
Sonya comments: ‘I’m asking questions about how the future is made, who gets to make that future and what it might be.’
Three Parent Child comprises two works. Action > Potential is a two-channel moving image work centring Andromeda, the personified galaxy and constellation that shares its name with the Aiethiopian Princess Andromeda in Greek mythology. In Sonya’s work, Andromeda metaphorically embodies the reclamation of the neglected stories of Black women of science and mythology. In Action>Potential, Andromeda is trying to return home to her galaxy after unexpectedly finding herself in a science lab, where she comes across a rogue mitochondria named Lucy.
Lucy is a large scale sculpture of the aforementioned rogue mitochondria, mutating throughout the three River Room spaces and transforming into something new altogether. Lucy forms the last in a series of space vessel sculptures named after three enslaved women experimented on by a notorious 19th century US gynaecologist.
Lucy, Sonya Dyer, Somerset House (2023). Photo by Tim Bowditch
Alt text: A darkened room with elaborate wall framing is illuminated by a single spotlight. In the centre of the spotlight on the floor is a black sculptural form. Through a doorway in an adjoining room is another larger sculptural form which fills the floorspace.
The title Three Parent Child takes its name from the recent scientific development of Mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT), a new technique that incorporates DNA from three people to create a child, which mirrors Dyer’s adherence to trilogies throughout her practice. Whilst in residence at Somerset House Studios, Dyer’s research has been supported as part of the King’s College London x Somerset House Studios Programme and Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a donor advised fund held at The London Community Foundation.
Lucy, Sonya Dyer, Somerset House (2023). Photo by Tim Bowditch
Alt text: A large sculptural form occupies the centre of a darkened room. The sculpture is black in colour and is made up of multiple connected organic shapes.
The Ready Room
Sonya Dyer | The Ready Room, Primary (2024). Photos by Jules Lister
Group alt text: Five images all featuring the same room. Inside the room are two connected video screens and two bench seats. On the screen are coloured backgrounds with human figures in various positions. There is a pink and blue spotlight lighting the space.
Dyer’s exhibition The Ready Room at Primary in Nottingham reimagined the dubious history of HeLa cells through speculative fiction. The exhibition created a ‘ready room’ for HeLa cells, transforming the gallery into the interior of a spaceship, a space for anthropomorphic cells to speculate and conspire.
In naval culture and speculative fiction, the Ready Room is where mission briefs amongst senior crew occur. It can also be the captain’s semi-private space, particularly in shows in the ‘Star Trek’ universe. HeLa cells were originally taken from the body of Henrietta Lacks, a young Black mother in the USA, and were the first human materials sent into space in 1960. In this project, hard science meets science fiction, with the Ready Room providing space for cells to relax, strategize and entertain. Recalling HeLa’s dubious genesis, the exhibition contemplates alternate forms of building society – what if the HeLa cells have found a better way to live?
The gallery space hosted the head of ‘Lucy’, part of the final sculptural artwork in a trilogy of spaceships Dyer has made, and Action>Potential (a two-channel moving image work), both also forming the basis of her exhibition ‘Three Parent Child’ at Somerset House, London in Autumn 2023.
Sonya Dyer
Sonya Dyer’s practice explores where the centre is located in fictional narratives of the future. She explores how subjectivities and alliances are formed across cultures and temporalities, creating radical futures through unexpected connections. Recent projects include Hailing Frequencies Open HFO), her long-term body of work, which intersects the Greek myth of Andromeda, the dubious genesis and extraordinary legacy of HeLa cells and actor Nichelle Nicols’ (Star Trek’s ‘[Uhura’) pioneering work with NASA in the 1970s across sculpture and moving image. Dyer is a Somerset House Studios Resident, was a finalist for the Arts Foundation Futures Award 2021, and is an alum of the Whitney Museum of American Art: Independent Study Program. Recent exhibitions include Three Parent Child, Somerset House (2023), The London Open, Whitechapel Gallery, Whitstable Biennial, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival (all 2022), Directions: Forward, Karst Gallery (2021), Thirteen Ways of Seeing, Herbert Museum and Art Galleries (2021), Art Night London (2021),
