DUMBO Open Studios 2025

at the Strother School of Radical Attention & Sanctuary Gallery 

Sanctuary Gallery Open House

3-6pm

The first two hours of Open Studio will be an event in the space hosted by the Hydrofeminist Map Collective. Learn more about that event and register for it here.

On the first day of DUMBO Open Studios, visitors will have an extended opportunity to view Sanctuary Gallery’s current exhibition, Artifacts. The exhibition features a conversation between the drawings of visual artist Anna Von Mertens, the photographs of art historian Jennifer L. Roberts, and the work of astronomer Henrietta Leavitt (1868–1921). For decades, Leavitt studied glass plate photographs at the Harvard College Observatory, measuring star brightness one mark of emulsion at a time, her work becoming key to mapping the cosmos. Mirroring Leavitt’s precision, Von Mertens meticulously renders the observatory’s glass plates in graphite on paper. Her repeated, intimate gestures measure themselves against the vastness of the sky. Building on this dialogue, art historian Jennifer L. Roberts, using a macro lens, photographs Von Mertens’s drawings, creating a connection of attention between artist, astronomer, and historian. Roberts' photographs generate new worlds, inviting a closer look at Von Mertens’s work, a deeper engagement with Leavitt’s legacy, and a contemplation of our place in the stars.