ABOUT THE PROJECT

Twelve Earths is a planetary sculpture by Michael Jones McKean, with critical support by Fathomers, which connects twelve sites — a primeval forest, a remote island, a nuclear test site, an observatory, and more — dispersed along a perfect ring encircling the Earth. Over a twelve-year period, Twelve Earths will build a constellation of contact points among people, matter, time, and events, establishing brief and long-form encounters with the geological and technological, with energy and transmutation, with human and non-human, to reveal a complex and multivalent portrait of Earth.

 
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Clockwise: A detail From Michael Jones McKean’s studio showing a working model for Twelve Earths’ final ring path (photo: Nick Davis)  / View of the Andes Mountains at sunset from the Víctor M. Blanco Telescope, Cerro Tololo, Chile, 2019. (photo: Michael Jones McKean Studio) / Teignmouth Electron in situ, 2017. (photo: All in Favor Productions). At top of page: Teignmouth Electron in situ, 2017.

 

ARTIST BIO

Michael Jones McKean (b. Micronesia; lives/works in New York, New York; Richmond, Virginia; and Morvan, France) has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and fellowships from the MFAH Core Program, International Studio and Curatorial Program, Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, MacDowell Colony, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, among many others. McKean is an Associate Professor of Sculpture + Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he has taught since 2006.

 

ACTIONS / UPDATES

Featured
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TWELVE EARTHS SITE 02 ANNOUNCEMENT
Fathomers is pleased to announce Abrigo do Lagar Velho, an ancient rock shelter in the Lapedo Valley of the District of Leiria in Portugal, as the second site in artist Michael Jones McKean’s long-form planetary sculpture Twelve Earths.

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TWELVE EARTHS SITE 01 ANNOUNCEMENT
Fathomers is pleased to announce the first site in artist Michael Jones McKean’s long-form planetary sculpture Twelve Earths.

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TWELVE EARTHS SITE VISIT DOCUMENTATION
This past Summer, Michael Jones McKean was able to visit one of Twelve Earths’ sites to spend time with a group of archaeologists that have been working on an excavation site for over 20 years.

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STUDIO TOUR: MICHAEL JONES MCKEAN
The definition of the “work space” has become a point of focus in this past year of pandemic adjustment. Join artist Michael Jones McKean as he reflects on what his studio means to him and Twelve Earths as a whole.

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WEB LAUNCH
Michael Jones McKean unveils the website for his planetary sculpture, Twelve Earths.

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ALL THAT LIES OUT OF SIGHT
Join Fathomers’ curator-at-large David Kim for an illuminating conversation with Michael Jones McKean featured in the fall 2019 issue of Art Papers.

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THE FALL
Michael Jones McKean’s latest work includes a vitrine developed with Twelve Earths collaborator John Vandenbrooks as a prototype of McKean’s Atmosphere.

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BUY THIS PRINT!
Announcing the first Twelve Earths edition: “Twelve Urns and Circles,” by Michael Jones McKean.

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VANDENBROOKS’ LAB
Paleophysiologist and Twelve Earths collaborator John VandenBrooks offers a tour of his research lab, in Glendale, Ariz.

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NEA GRANT
The National Endowment for the Arts approves an Art Works grant to Fathomers for the development of Atmosphere, an installation at one of twelve sites in Michael Jones McKean’s Twelve Earths.

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OPEN SIGNAL
A group of artists, poets, designers, consultants, and scholars come together to begin thinking about a global communication system of beacons linking Twelve Earths’ twelve sites.

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ETA
Fathomers presents a one-night-only “earthbound travelers anthology” to muse on deep time, the here-and-now, and other scales of experience.

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ANCIENT ATMOSPHERE
Artist Michael Jones McKean and collaborators discuss the challenges and poetics of reproducing a 300-million-year-old atmosphere.

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TWELVE EARTHS
Announcing the launch of Michael Jones McKean’s Twelve Earths, a sculpture scaled to Earth itself.

 
 

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