Annie May Johnston
Dark Enough to See

Moon upon moon builds the sky with her beams…yet we are but dust and dreams. - Horace

Annie May Johnston’s exhibition, Dark Enough to See, contemplates the disappearing night sky due to light pollution and the consequential severed connections between humans and a nightly reminder that we are small, that we are moving, and that the fleeting darkness is full of potential. Johnston’s installation wraps the gallery in scanner collages and Xerox copies with no beginning and no end. Punctuating this surface are necklaces embedded with hair, letter beads, and objects emerging from the wall with the cold precision of a scientific display. Works in welded metal suspend from the ceiling, made to glow in the dark, storing their illumination from an unmoored source. The installation forms a continuous loop, mirroring the expansive reach of the universe, and serves as a space for contemplation to see beyond what is known, where stars are born in cold, dark, dense places with pressure, darkness, and time. Johnston describes the experience as “a long journey back, toward whoever is forming on the dark side of the moon.”