Paloma Polo. Apparent position

Apparent position is part of a research project, on display at Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain), about the scientific expeditions that took place during the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century in order to view and document different astronomical phenomena. In this project Paloma Polo (Madrid, 1983) explores the close relationship between scientific development and colonial expansion by the European imperialist powers.

On this occasion, Polo focuses on an expedition undertaken in 1919 by the British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington to Principe Island, a former Portuguese colony in the Gulf of Guinea, to attempt to prove Einstein's Theory of Relativity through the observation of the effects of a total solar eclipse.

Paloma Polo's project (which includes a series of photographs that, with the assistance of rigorous historical research, recreate the scene at the specific location and at the very moment that the eclipse was being viewed during Sir Eddington's scientific adventure) reflects on how the position, both physical and ideological, that we occupy and/or from which we observe, conditions our way of seeing and understanding things, looking at the relationship between power and knowledge and revealing the persistence, even in our days, of the colonial logic that made it possible for expeditions such as Eddington's to be conducted.

Its intention is not to re-frame a scarcely documented historic event so that it can be explored from a new point of view, but rather to explore how the point of view that ends up becoming dominant is constructed, repositioning the scientist in those expeditions as a historical subject at the service of colonial power.

Date: until April 23
Location: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Santa Isabel 52, 28012, Madrid. Spain.
Opening hours: from Monday to Saturday, from 10am to 9pm. Sundays, from 10am to 2.30pm.