Step inside this Observatory and see that what you are looking from has no center.
Tomas builds Observatories that turn perception back on itself.
At zero distance from yourself, the center disappears.
There is seeing, but no one looking.
Enter the Space Collapsing Observatory
1st Thursday — June 4
Immersive sessions
June 5-7
“At the center of my Observatories are empty mirrors collapsing your sense of being located within a head. These oscillating sculptures turn around the arrow of your attention from the world of objects you are looking at, to the empty space you are seeing from. As the Observatories collapse all space, that which is seeing suddenly becomes visible as an absence that has no boundaries. These sculptures are not objects to be looked at; they simply stand as transparent mirrors reflecting the infinite emptiness you are already looking out from. As the Observatories collapse all distance, you are no longer looking into the world—all of the world is looking out of you. There is seeing, but no one looking!”
– Tomas Peeters
Tomas Peeters grew up in Antwerp, Belgium in the 1960s with a sense that there was something fundamentally incomplete about being in the world. He began creating physical objects to see what the empty space at zero distance from himself looks like. Along his quest, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Sculpture from Sint-Lucas School of Art in Brussels, and then with a Master of Fine Arts from California State University, Northridge. In 2003, Tomas established Lumina Pura, his art and research studio in Los Angeles where he works with a small staff developing his life’s work: the Observatories. These sculptures are instruments built to look for the clear emptiness he is looking out from. After decades of searching, he came to the startling recognition that what he was looking for is simply that which is seeing! Tomas invites people into these space-collapsing sculptures, to have an unmediated seeing of this boundless emptiness they are looking out from. No longer is there something missing—there is simply this turbulent world!