A CLUSTER OF ENIGMAS

650 Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY 11217

A Cluster of Enigmas is a vibrant AR-enabled mural pairing a mysterious class of cosmological entities with the luminous, diverse women of New York City. The mural’s scientific underpinnings are drawn from the research of Dr. Jackie Faherty, an astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History. Dr. Faherty studies brown dwarfs, a substellar object about the size of Jupiter, but up to 75 times more massive. Too small to be considered stars, brown dwarfs still get hot enough to fuse elements like deuterium and, if you could see them, they would appear in two main classes of red(L) and blue(T). The redder brown dwarfs are covered in exotic clouds of corundum and silicates and the bluer to magenta brown dwarfs are dominated by methane gas but also have salt and water ice clouds. Though a ubiquitous part of stellar and planetary systems, their hybrid properties and complex atmospheres make them tricky research subjects, earning them the nickname “misfits of the Galaxy”.

Like brown dwarfs, the women of New York City are bold, mysterious, and irrepressible. They are everywhere - classrooms and courthouses, bodegas and boardrooms - and yet impossible to pin down. In A Cluster of Enigmas, four women are grouped together, each cloaking a part of themselves. The leftmost figure is Dr. Josephine English, the first Black woman to open a private practice in NYC. It is only fitting that as a pioneer in her field she sits among the stars. Openings appear in the sky, gateways to the stars, just as brown dwarfs are windows to the Universe. This scene is flanked by two visionary space pioneers, women who helped humanity see and travel through the cosmos.

Artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya invited young women and community members to the site to participate in the making of the mural and hear about the science that inspired it.