Moldwin Prize – ArtsEngine Art/Sci Residency

The Body of the Sun (2024)

Mira Hughes 

Stamps School of Art and Design

Sun Portraits 

Cyanotype on Paper 

Over the span of a week, I tracked the Sun using a Sunspotter telescope and documented the sunspots as they grew and traveled with the Sun, and then translated this data into simplified wire line drawings. Arranged to show the passage of time, these cyanotypes show the development of a solar storm. Sunspots are cooler (but still extremely hot) areas of the Sun that are visibly darker. 

Sun Bodies

Charcoal on Paper 

Sunspots are often found grouped in oppositely-charged pairs, and are visual evidence of convection within the layers of the Sun. While examining images of sunspot AR3576 – a massive sunspot cluster multiple times larger than the Earth that I had been tracking for the Sun Portraits project – I became interested in the movement of the solar granulation and the interactions between sunspots. 

This artwork was inspired by the experience Mira Hughes, an Art & Design student, had participating with the research team in Professor Mark Moldwin’s lab as part of the Moldwin Prize, an ArtsEngine Art/Sci Residency.

The goal of the Art/Sci Residency Program is to encourage interdisciplinary learning and creative production by exposing students to life and work in an alternate discipline’s maker space. Professor Moldwin’s lab works on space weather (e.g. how the Sun influences the space environment of Earth/society) and magnetic sensor development. 

Learn more about the ArtsEngine Art/Sci Residencies: artsengine.umich.edu/art-sci-residencies