Exhibition opening Thursday, April 16, at 6:00 PM.
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The exhibition Unknown Alphabet is about Siv Bugge Vatne's (b. 1974) attempt to solve the Voynich mystery. The Voynich manuscript is a magical or scientific manuscript from the first half of the 15th century that is written in an unknown alphabet that no one has been able to decode. The 240 pages of the manuscript contain freehand drawings of plants and cosmological diagrams, which no one has been able to identify with certainty or place in a known tradition.
For Bugge Vatne, the mystery is primarily about what the countless unique drawings represent. The manuscript lacks context, and with an unknown language, an unknown alphabet, and unknown iconography, it is claimed to be impossible to decode. In 2022, Siv Bugge Vatne published a theory about the alphabet and language. She used visual studies in her attempt to decode the alphabet, identify the plants, find plant names, and recognize the language. Since 2022, she has continued to fine-tune the decoding through studies of the fold-out cosmological drawing in the manuscript, also called the Rosette Map. Drawing has been important in her work. Her drawing studies, in pencil, ink, and gouache on paper, will be shown at the exhibition, along with a presentation of the decoding and suggestions for translating the text in the Rosette Map.
Other exhibitions during the period: Masoud Alireza, 56 Million Lines .
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Photo: Francisco Casale.
