It’s out of this world...
IN A gallery, far far away... (well, the Brian White Gallery at Guernsey Museum), from tomorrow, it’s the centre of the unknown universe as the new exhibition, Engage Warp Drive, touches down.
Celebrating the excitement and imagination of science fiction, the museum will be full of artwork, movie posters, comic books, props, costumes and models from film and television.
‘This is something that we’ve come up with from scratch,’ said curator Matt Harvey. ‘We were looking to finish off the year with something family friendly, good for the children. I proposed this and it all came together.’
It was action stations on Monday as the team put the exhibition together ready for tomorrow evening’s private opening, but the quality of the exhibits – from both the UK and local collectors – is amazing.
Costumes from Aliens and Star Wars mingle with life-size reproductions of robot dog K9 and Davros (the Dalek leader) from Doctor Who; posters line the walls – everything from Captain Scarlet through UFO to Thunderbirds; and there are models of spaceships – USS Enterprise, an Imperial Star Destroyer and X-Wings from Star Wars – included.
‘We have Thunderbirds’ composer Barry Gray’s EMI tape machine from Stage FX Studios in St Martin’s and you can listen to some of his theme tunes on headphones. We’ll also have scrolling images on screens and TV series and films projected onto a big screen.’
In the greenhouse gallery, and acting as a perfect accompaniment to Engage Warp Drive, Guernsey Arts Commission presents Warp 2, a retrospective by local-born artist, Chris Foss.
As a young boy the artist was fascinated by the mechanics of large machinery and engines, including the cranes in St Peter Port and St Sampson’s harbours, and the architecture of the German fortifications constructed during the Occupation.
His sci -fi work has adorned everything from novels to LP covers and caught the eye of film directors, who would bring him in as a concept artist. He conceptualised the planet Krypton for Superman, worked on concepts for Alien, Flash Gordon, Stanley Kubrick’s A.I: Artificial Intelligence, and most recently Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
