AILEEN DURKAN

Lucy is a narrative about our past and our future.

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Lucy was inspired by the discovery of Laniakea,the Hawaiian word meaning 'immesurable heavens'. This new discovery completely shifted my viewof the universe, blew it up 1000 fold, expanded my mind and my heart. I was in total and utter awe at life and the undending expansiveness of the universe, about how little we know in the grand scheme of things and how much more we have yet to discover.

To gain an understaing of Laniakea check out this youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rENyyRwxpHo

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Around the same time that I found out about Laniakea, I had been researching early human ancestry. The question that has been floating around since my youth bobbed up to the surface again; "Are humans the only species that look up to the stars and wonder what they are?" This question brought me to wonder about our earliest ancestors. Did they too look up at the stars and marvel at their majesty?

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In the early 70's, in Ethiopia, the remains of an early hominid were discovered. These remains were of an australopithicus dating back to around 3.2 million years ago. She is one of our earliest ancestors. At the time of discovery the hit song 'lucy in the sky with diamonds' by the Beatles was played loudly and repeatedly around the excavation site and so they came to name our earliest ancestor 'Lucy'

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I gave this piece the same name to represent our links from past to our present and into the future.

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