Night Maps

A free exhibition tracing how maps of the night sky have linked cosmic imagination with earthly power across cultures and centuries.

Night Maps brings together medieval manuscripts, early printed astronomy, a monumental 1822 Chinese celestial map, a Nepalese earth globe, an ancient Ecuadorian cosmological object, and works connected to modern space exploration. The exhibition follows changing uses of celestial knowledge, from myth and administration to colonial governance, surveillance and the space race. It is curated by John Tresch with Matthew Harle and Phoebe Cripps.