State of the Sky
Collaboration with Luke Stettner
Solar Darkroom and Three-Story 2D Installation
Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
November 17, 2023 - January 4, 2026
State of the Sky collaborators: Mac Carbonell, Chris Domenick, Michelle Franco, Nicholas Kawa, Calista Lyon, Bryan Ortiz, Suzanne Silver, Ed Steck, and Michael Stickrod.
Visual artist Luke Stettner was invited to create a multi-year exhibition at 516 Sampsonia Way, a three-story row house at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Stettner invited nine collaborators, including artists, a poet, a social scientist and landscape architect to create State of the Sky.
Lyon is a key collaborator in State of the Sky, their research and production contributing to the overall generation of this exhibition. Working with the Archives & Special Collections at the University of Pittsburgh, Stettner and Lyon investigated the history of time standardization in Pittsburgh and how this modernization contributed to the region’s air pollution from increased railroad transportation and steel production. This project is a way to understand how industry shaped our current conception of time and examines Western Pennsylvania's heritage of environmental activism. The exhibition recognizes individuals and organizations that have, and continue to, champion the health of our skies and communities.
In the US, prior to the enactment of Standard Railway Time on November 18, 1883, most cities, towns and rural communities relied on the sun—a way of measuring time based on its position in the sky. Standard Railway Time no longer used the sun to tell time, instead relying on sidereal time—using Earth’s rate of rotation relative to a set of fixed stars. Sidereal time was calculated by observatories and sent via telegraph. Using this method, the Allegheny Observatory in Pittsburgh was able to sell time—transforming an intangible phenomenon into a commodity.
Working with traditional and experimental analogue photographic practices, Stettner and Lyon, built a solar darkroom that uses Earth’s most powerful light source, the Sun. Three solar exposure units draw from the suns rays via tubing from the roof to make photograms. These photographic exposures are created without the use of a negative, by placing objects directly onto or above the surface of a light-sensitive material—the object shadows are rendered white, light is rendered black.
The solar darkroom is activated by the artists, artist-in-residence, community workshops, and an experimental school designed by Stettner and Lyon in collaboration with the Mattress Factory. This site is used for creative inquiry and community engagement—asking participants to slow down, cultivate attention and work with the sky above Pittsburgh.
The images made by Stettner and Lyon in the solar darkroom are accompanied by collages, diagrams and original archival material to create an installation across the exhibitions three floors. This body of work is evolving, with new pieces added throughout the exhibitions duration.
State of the Sky challenges conventional notions of group or solo exhibitions and commits to the richness of shared inquiry. Stettner and Lyon’s collaboration shares knowledge about a critical historical turn in timekeeping that continues to structure our lived realities today. Through engagement with the exhibition and solar darkroom the artist’s foster restorative relationships to the past and present, place and community.
Calista Lyon and Luke Stettner extend their thanks to the Mattress Factory, specifically, Natalie Miczikus, Dylan Critchfield-Sales, Mattie Cannon, Danny Bracken and David Oresick, along with Media Curator Miriam Meislik and the Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.
The following collections from the University of Pittsburgh Library System are featured in the exhibition:
> Allegheny County, Pa. Health Department, Bureau of Air Pollution Control Records
> Allegheny Observatory Collection
> Fred Wright Papers
> Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP) Records
> Harold Corsini Photograph Collections
> Ken Kobus Photograph Collections
> Michelle Madoff Papers
> Pittsburgh City Photographer Collection
> Smoke Investigation Activities of the Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh, Pa. Research Records
> Smoke Control Lantern Slide Collection
> UE Research on Labor Issues
> United States Steel Corporation Duquesne Works Industrial Relations Department Records
> William J. Gaughan Collection
