Star charts (maps) are often divided by astronomers into grids, then used to identify and locate stars, constellations and galaxies. Astronomical objects are interspersed throughout Biggers’ work, symbolic of the models used by Tubman and others as they found their way to freedom

Never one to settle into one domain or discipline, Sanford Biggers extends his exploration of found objects and complex ideas in another exhibition at Mass MoCA. The Cartographer’s Conundrum, a multi-disciplinary installation inspired by artist and scholar John Biggers (1924-2001). In this work Sanford Biggers studies and expands upon Afrofuturism, which “engages science-fiction, cosmology and technology to create a new folklore of the African Diaspora” while at the same time illuminating the underrepresented career of John Biggers. The Mass MoCA show is my next stop on a journey through the Sanford Biggers puzzle – i.e. as a new approach to production that encourages a collaborative exchange between contemporary art, culture, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).