News

Fall 2025: Research Trip to the Subaru Telescope and Maunakea, Hawai’i

I was in Hawai’i for 7 days of filming this fall for my project, Light/Echo, which will be shown at the Rundetaarn in Copenhagen next year. Thank you to Dr. Tomonori Usuda and Kumiko Usuda-Sato for spending a really memorably day with me at the Subaru Telescope and thanks to everyone at the Maunakea Stewardship Office and the Hawai’i Film Office for helping me to get all the permits I needed for a week on filming on the island.

View of a mountain landscape with observatory telescopes on the summit, under a clear blue sky with scattered clouds.

A mountain with a rocky base and reddish slope featuring an observatory with two large telescope domes on top, under a clear blue sky.

A large blue structure or machine inside a warehouse or hangar, with metal panels, pipes, and electrical wiring.

Interior of a large scientific or industrial machine with blue structural components, wiring, and a central circular ring at the top in a high-ceiling room.

A mountainous landscape with brown and gray hills, sparse green vegetation, a clear blue sky with some scattered clouds, and a winding road with buildings and vehicles in the distance.

A clear blue sky over a mountain with a series of large white satellite dishes and a round observatory structure on a brown, rocky surface.

Close-up of a person's hand holding a rough, dark volcanic rock with a textured surface, against a rocky, desert-like landscape and a clear blue sky in the background.

Ligia Bouton pointing at an exhibit display at the Emily Dickinson Museum, which features a poem with words and objects.

AUGUST 2025

A Something Overtakes the Mind is now open!!

Listen to an interview with me and my collaborator, Matt Donovan, about our exhibition “A Something Overtakes the Mind” at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts. Thank you to Karen Brown for coming to talk to us and to see the show.

Go to the interview

CERN: Art and Science Summit 2025, Geneva, Switzerland

Professional Programme

I was honored to be a part of one of the panels and to present on my work
Niels Bohr Art and Science group

It was wonderful to connect at CERN with artists, scientists, and curators from Copenhagen including Irene Campolmi!
Visit to the CMS Experiment

As a part of the symposium I was invited to visit this giant detector within the Large Hadron Collider.

Event poster for Ligia Bouton, titled 'Echo Lights: Exploring Hidden aspects Behind SN 1572', scheduled on November 5, 2025, from 1:00 to 1:45 PM, hosted in the Lunch Room at DARK, located at DARK Research Unit, 2nd floor, Jagtvej 155A. The poster features a background with a digitally distorted landscape combining a grassy field and a blue sky.

If you are in Copenhagen on November 5, 2024 please joins us for my talk at DARK at 1pm. It is free and open to the public.

Modern building with a glass facade featuring geometric patterns, set against a clear blue sky with a paved area and trees in the background.

Ligia Bouton's art studio at the Niels Bohr Institute.

An enclosed corridor with large glass windows on both sides, at the Niels Bohr Institute. By Ligia Bouton.

FALL 2024

Thank you to everyone at the Niels Bohr Institute and the Art and Science Initiative for hosting me for 3 months as the artist-in-residence with the DARK research group.

It was absolutely amazing.

Harvard Gazette website article titled "How an artist discovered a shining star" a project by Ligia Bouton.

25 Variable Stars: A Temporary Monument for Henrietta Swan Leavitt

at the Kendall/MIT Northbound MBTA station

featured in the Harvard Gazette

Go to article

25 Variable Stars:

A Temporary Monument for Henrietta Swan Leavitt

Opens June 10, 2024

Kendall/MIT Northbound Red Line - temporary entrance

Indoor art exhibit hallway with framed photographs or artwork on white walls, ceiling lights, signage above indicating buses and main street, and a staircase at the end.

Missing Department book now available!

A webpage of a product listing for a book titled "Missing Department" by Ligia Bouton and Matt Donovan, priced at $35.00. The page has a black and white header with shop categories and a search bar. The book cover shown features a collage of vintage newspaper clippings and an abstract figure in the center, with the title and authors' names on a red spine.

Go to the VSW Press website to get your copy!

We had an amazing week in Copenhagen for the opening of

YET, IT MOVES!

Yet, It Moves!

Copenhagen Contemporary, May 12 2023 - December 30 2023

Nothing stands still. Even things we consider immutable are in constant motion – within, above and all around us. Motion is a fundamental premise of everything in the universe, from the tiniest atomic particles to the human body and the macrocosm of the stars. Recognized in glimpses, this greater, moving whole is embodied in spectacular artworks giving shape and form to complex phenomena like black holes, star formation and gravitational waves – from the macro scale of the expanding universe to the micro scale of atomic explosions and particle.

The exhibiting artists are Ryoji Ikeda, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Jenna Sutela, Ligia Bouton, Helene Nymann, Nina Nowak, Jens Settergren, Black Quantum Futurism, Cecilia Bengolea, Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm and Nora Turato.

! ! 2023 Exhibition News ! !

Abstract image of intertwined plant roots and leaves with the overlay text 'YET I LOVE YOU' and 'CC' in red and blue letters.

25 Stars: A Temporary Monument for Henrietta Swan Leavitt included in Yet, It Moves! at Copenhagen Contemporary

May 11, 2023- December 30, 2023

Yet, It Moves! website

Penland Winter Residency 2023

In January 2023, I spent two incredibly productive weeks at the Penland School of Craft in Penland, North Carolina. During long days in the flame shop, I blew almost 100 pieces of glass that will be photographed and layered into my “25 Variable Star” portraits. More on that soon! Thanks Penland for the uninterrupted time and the use of your beautiful, historic, and fully equipped glass studio!

Frost-covered grass in the foreground with leafless trees and a mixture of evergreen and deciduous trees in the background. A mountain range with low-lying clouds or fog in the distance. The sky is partly cloudy with blue sky visible.

Workshop with workbenches, black chairs, and large hoses hanging from the ceiling.

Set of glass tubes filled with colored liquids on a wooden rack in a workshop.

A workshop table with various glass rods and pipes laid out, including colored and clear glass pieces, used for glassblowing.

Hand holding a small, decorative glass orb with blue and white glass accents, with a gravel surface in the background.

Small snowman with a face made of small stones or similar, sitting on a snow-covered surface outside a building, with graffiti-painted trash bins and blue protest signs behind it.

Missing Department is now OPEN

A.P.E. Gallery - Northampton, MA - November 10 to December 10, 2022

See an interview with Matt and I on Spectrum News about the exhibition here.

Two men are in a gallery or museum, one is taking a photo of the other who is standing in front of a display case with artwork inside.

Ligia Bouton being interviewed by a man in front of a textured artwork on the wall, with a video camera on a tripod recording the interview.

August 2023 - Visual Studies Workshop Project Space Residency

It has been an incredible month at VSW. I don’t think I realized how much I really needed this uninterrupted time and space to figure out where I want to go with the research work I have been doing at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I hope to be able to share more images and thoughts about this new project, which I am tentatively calling “Queen of the Night”, soon. But here is a first glimpse at the 25 Cepheid variable stars I am creating as lenticular photographic prints. I have made these gifs to get a sense of how the final images will move as you walk around them. Enjoy!

Animation by Ligia Bouton of a Cepheid variable star.

A room with a grey wall covered in various papers, photos, and diagrams. A wooden table with books, a water bottle, and electronic items. A black office chair. A desk with papers and writing tools near a window with a view outside.

An art exhibition display featuring black and white and color images arranged on a light grey wall, with some artwork printed on paper and others on display boards. There are some objects on a wooden table in the foreground, including cords and tools.

A vintage green dress displayed on a mannequin with a white lace collar, positioned in a room with wooden floors and a window with dark blinds.

October 2021

Hyper/Reality at Amos Eno Gallery

Works by Aaron Wilder, Grant Johnson and Ligia Bouton

Oct 7 - 24, 2021

Exhibition Opening Reception: Friday, September 8 from 6-9 PM

Hyper/Reality is a Fall 2021 exhibition presented at Amos Eno Gallery that feature works in dialogue with reality and its discontents. Curated by gallery director Audra Lambert, Hyper/Reality is on view from Oct 7th through October 24th, and features artworks by Ligia Bouton, Grant Johnson and Aaron Wilder. The show examines how reality/ies can be skewed and re-interpreted utilizing new media, photography, mixed media, painting, collage, sculpture, installation and performance art.

Baudrillard’s 20th century art criticism introduced the concept of the hyperreal, which marks the rising importance of the Simulacrum over reality. Hyper/Reality confronts the many ways in which the hyperreal has overtaken reality in the present day, delving into digital and wireless technologies that have pervaded our view of what is, and is not, ‘real.’ Works on view in Hyper/Reality present altered visions of the ‘real,’ as defined by the overlap of digital, natural and social phenomenon that permeate our everyday lives.

August 2021

The Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, NY) announces it’s upcoming Project Space artists-in-residence. Find the full lists of artists here. I’m looking forward to spending the month of August ‘22 at VSW!

A glass plate photographs from the Havard Observatory.

August 2020

Smithsonian Announces Its 2020 Artist Research Fellows

Click here to see the article.