About

Lily Hibberd is an interdisciplinary artist and writer working on frontiers of time, memory and the cosmos. Her practice combines performance, writing, painting, photography, sound, moving image and installation art. Developed in collaboration with artists, scientists and historians, the resulting works have been presented in 66 major or international exhibitions, events and festivals since 1999.

The planet Venus has been the focus of the past four years of creative research through painting and archival investigation. Lily’s recent residency at the Science Museum, London, now extends to collections connected to Venus located around the world. She is also working with a team of artists, curators and scientists on Venus Conversations 2024-2034.

Lily is founding editor of the art writing publication unMagazine (2004), co-founder of Parragirls Memory Project (2012), and a frequent author and co-author of books, essays and journal articles. She holds a PhD by research practice and is a researcher at Université Paris Cité and EPFL Laboratory for Experimental Museology.

Current Work

Venus Project

Venus is our closest planetary neighbour yet it is overlooked as a scientific, celestial and cultural object. Started in 2021, this interdisciplinary project embraces Venus as a way to appreciate what lies beyond the margins of our understanding. Artistic production includes a body of more than a hundred paintings of the surface of Venus, a narrative video, a painting installation of the violent women associated with Venus, the artist book ‘Venus sees Earth’, and a sculpture series embodying occlusions in radar data of the planet.

As a long-term reflexive and collaborative work, the Venus Project is engaging creative and scientific communities to reimagine our relationship with this overlooked planet, under the umbrella of Venus Conversations 2024-2034.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principle arts investment and advisory body.

Venus Sees Earth

A Time Atlas in Reverse

Venus has observed Earth over billions of years. In the eyes of our twin planet, we have evolved in parallel, and we are bound together both geologically and in shared interplanetary consciousness. Venus recounts this history in reverse starting from our common origins in the birth of the Solar System. This artist book tells its story through an atlas of astronomical images of Earth seen by Venus. On their voyage through the Solar System, these images look back at Earth, echoing Walter Benjamin’s 'Angel of History’.

Published in Paris in November 2024, it comprises 42 colour pages, available in a limited edition.

To order contact lilyhibberdstudio [insert@] pm.me

The Substance of Not-seeing

Venus Radar Data Scultpures

Our vision of Venus through radar data is marred by absences in the images. Radar scientists can explain these flaws. But what is the substance of this emptiness? This scultpture series is a direct imprint of these occlusions in the NASA Magellan dataset.

The Substance of Not-Seeing, installation view of data sculptures, Lily Hibberd, 2024

Sappho’s Return

An interplanetary thriller

At the height of summer of 1979, a committee of 16 men gather in a closed room and vote to dedicate the planet Venus to 'feminine’ names. But a conflict erupts as they are caught up in resistance from the women’s movement and Cold War subterfuge. Meanwhile, one of the committee goes missing. A journalist unravels the mystery, alongside the gods, dead women and heroines that the committee nominated, led by the return of the poet Sappho.

More to come...

Sappho Patera, oil on board, 40cm, Lily Hibberd, 2021

The Violence of Venus

This painting of five panels maps the entire surface of Venus, locating the warrior women, heroines and terrifying mythological figures named after violent places on the planet by the International Astronomical Union since 1979.

The Violence of Venus, oil on linen, five panels, each 70 x 120cm, Lily Hibberd, 2025

Venus Conversations 2024–2034

 Launched at the Science Museum in November 2024, Venus Conversations is a series of dialogues and art projects launching from the planet Venus to explore cultural, scientific and artistic forcefields. This decade-long project is organised in collaboration with French art critic and independent curator Annick Bureaud and Austrian art-science curator and scholar Claudia Schnugg. Visit the webpage for details.

Venus Conversations Documentary Exhibition

Science Museum, Dana Research Centre and Library, November 2024.

Created as a result of the Lily Hibberd’s artist residency working in the Science Museum’s collections, this exhibition creates new constellations of Venus connecting social, scientific, and artistic dimensions of the planet. Ecclectic objects from astronomical, space instrumentation, anthropological and medical collections are interwoven with contemporary artists’ works and scientific research on Venus toward the future exploration of our neighbouring planet.

Exhibitions & events

New work on Venus commissioned for The Great Exhibition Road Festival in June 2025, London, United Kingdom.

Venusian Rover touring in “Cosmos Archaeology: Explorations in Time and Space” at Guangdong Science Center, China, until 30 May 2025, then to the National Museum of China in Beijing.

The Venus Project features in the book "Space Feminisms: People, Planets, Power", edited by Marie-Pier Boucher, Claire Webb, Annick Bureaud, and Nahum.

Contact

Email

lilyhibberdstudio [insert@] pm.me