The WOW and the WHY

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DUODUO, “Aurora Scores,” performing at Wheat City Nuit Blanche 2025 on January 11th

Left to right: Leanne Zacharias, Helen Pridmore, WL Altman (Jimmie Kilpatrick not pictured) (courtesy of the Gallery)

Artists: Justin Anderson | Doug Derksen | Tracy Gregorash | Andrew Hamm | Natascha Kitchur | Herman Lepp | Rob Lovatt | Ryan Lucenkiw | Justin Oertel. Featuring a new composition by DUODUO (WL Altman, Jimmie Kilpatrick, Helen Pridmore, Leanne Zacharias)

Six years ago, on a tip, Justin Anderson took a night trip to Riding Mountain to see a show of the Northern Lights. What he saw was a staggering celestial performance. The sky, he says, “exploded at 2 a.m.” Conveying the experience in a later conversation, he can only say, “Wow!”

That “wow” is a prayer to the night sky–a gasp following contact with the sublime. Anderson, who has since become a full-time Northern Lights photographer and researcher, is not alone in his devotional relationship with the aurora, especially among Manitobans, all of whom have the year-round chance of witnessing the phenomenon if the conditions are right.

The right conditions are determined by solar wind data in terms of speed, density, intensity, and charge; as well as terrestrial weather conditions and light pollution. That data is gathered from a series of professional and popular sources. In many cases, aurora prediction is a byproduct of more practical, capital concerns, but the data is out there, and so citizen scientists gather, as with the Manitoba Aurora and Astronomy Facebook group, in order to share, predict, and collaborate with like-minded aurora-chasers.

The exhibition The WOW and the WHY is made possible by the use of digital technologies, not just the cameras, which allow photographers to check their captures against reality on-site, but also online platforms and communication channels, which make pursuit of the “why” infinitely more accessible than it was in the past. Sharing the “wow,” of course, is the eternal task of the fanatics, the alchemists, and the arts.