Evidence that could truly vindicate Lemaître's Big Bang theory remained elusive until a serendipitous discovery in 1964. Bell Telephone Laboratories engineers Arnos Penzias and Robert Wilson were working on a radio antenna when they heard a persistent hiss they could not explain. They called the Princeton cosmology department who confirmed their antenna was picking up the faint relic radiation of the Hot Big Bang – a telegram from the dawn of time. Lemaître heard this amazing news on his deathbed, allowing him his own final words on the matter: ‘I am content. Now we have the proof.’ 

The discovery of the relic Big Bang radiation meant that almost overnight the question of whether the Universe had a beginning became a hot topic in cosmology. This provided much food for thought for young British cosmologist Stephen Hawking. Hawking proved in his PhD that if Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity was right, then the Big Bang was also the beginning of time itself. Try getting into the mind of Stephen Hawking by browsing through his PhD thesis or exploring the blackboard from his Cambridge office filled with mathematical equations and physics jokes.

Much like Hawking, artist Ni Youyu uses a blackboard to break down the vastness of the immeasurable cosmos. Like many of the other artworks – a slice of ancient photographic light, or a meditation on the inner structure of atoms – his piece connects us to the wonder of the unknown, the imperceptible and the uncharted.  These works suggest that mark making itself might be an act of eternal discovery, and they evoke the awe and poetic beauty of the Universe.