In this virtual presentation on April 4, 2024, Blumenfeld gave an overview of her artistic practice and her collaborations with scientists and research institutions, including NASA, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the McDonald Observatory, and the South African National Antarctic Program. She also discussed her time working with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which inspired the print series Tracing Luminaries, which was on display in the exhibition “imaginary i” at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art from November 11, 2023 – April 7, 2024.

Blumenfeld joined the Moon Village Association’s Cultural Considerations Working Group along with Planetary Scientist Prof Ian Crawford (Birkbeck College, University of London) for a webinar panel discussion titled, “Moon Rocks: Study and Inspiration.” Blumenfeld discusses and gives a demo of her pioneering project, Astromaterials 3D, and how this research archive/public artwork relates to her art practice as a whole. Prof Crawford discusses the impact the Apollo Mission rock samples have had on our understanding of the Moon and the origin and evolution of the solar system. The webinar was held virtually on November 14, 2023, at 5.30 CET.

Artist Erika Blumenfeld and gallery director Kerry Inman in conversation on April 8, 1:00pm. The two discuss Blumenfeld’s latest print project, Tracing Luminaries, and Blumenfeld presents on the history of the Women Computers who inspired the prints, the printmaking process itself, questions of conservation and historical preservation at large, the rich scientific discoveries behind the glass plates, and more.

Blumenfeld talks with Radio France’s Affaires Culturelles host, Arnaud Laport, about her art practice, focusing on her longtime interest in light and the cosmos, and her experience at the McDonald Observatory. Affaires Culturelles is a France Culture radio show that is “committed to culture and creation by getting closer to artists, showing how culture is IN society, that it is its reflection, vibration, and sometimes even premonition.”

Blumenfeld discusses all things art, science, and space rocks on “Houston, We Have A Podcast,” the official podcast of NASA Johnson Space Center, with host, Pat Ryan, and colleague, Jeremy Kent, geologist and Apollo sample curation processor. Find HWHAP Episode 263: Astromaterials 3D on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and SoundCloud—or click on the link below to listen directly from NASA’s website.

Blumenfeld takes viewers on a brief tour of Astromaterials 3D Website & Explorer Application to teach people how to explore NASA’s Moon rocks inside and out while also highlighting the Apollo 17 lunar samples in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 17.

Blumenfeld gives a talk on August 30, 2022, as part of Project PHaEDRA’s “Behind the Scenes” Summer Series, hosted by the Wolbach Library at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Blumenfeld discussed her soon-to-be-released Tracing Luminaries print edition in collaboration with Island Press, and the hand-marked notations made by Harvard’s Women Computers in their work with the Harvard Astronomical Photographic Glass Plate Collection.

For this live-streamed event, “Ecologies of Meaning in Art, Science, & Technology Collaborations,” transdisciplinary artist Erika Blumenfeld (2000 Creative Capital Awardee) moderated a conversation with transmedia artist Stephanie Dinkins (2019 Creative Capital Awardee), environmental artist Xavier Cortada (2022 Creative Capital Awardee), and Mónica Bello, head curator at Arts at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics). Each shares brief presentations about their respective work across art, science, and technology, and discusses the perceived boundaries, entanglements, and kinships of these fields, considering the contributions artists can make in collaboration with the sciences.

Blumenfeld discusses her work at the intersection of art and science, her Tracing Luminaries and Astromaterials 3D projects with the members of the NASA Night Sky Network

Blumenfeld gives her talk, Elemental Empathy: Deep Listening Across Deep Time, at the 4th Designing for Empathy Summit, held online from October 27-29, 2021. The inaugural Summit in 2018 was hosted by His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, India, which became the seed for the annual event to foster compassion and universal ethics and expand our understanding of the role of empathy as a pathway to care, compassion, and love. (Blumenfeld’s talk begins at the 02:33:00 mark in this conference session)