Parker’s Box is delighted to announce the first ever public presentation of unclassified artifacts, documents, projects, objects, models and paraphernalia from the Headquarters of the aerospace dwarf company, BPL (Brower Propulsion Laboratory). The gallery is most excited to be giving the public an opportunity to view material from this most innovatory spacelab that was still operating entirely in secret just a few months ago, due to the controversial nature of some of its important research.

It has often been said that in the higher echelons of inventive creativity, there is little difference between Art and Science, and indeed, in the golden age of Apollo, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) collaborated with many of the most creative minds in the USA. In subsequent decades, however, the artistic spirit that took America to the moon has been conspicuous through its absence, as NASA’s significance has diminished in the face of evolving political circumstances.

Notwithstanding, a younger, much poorer, and very distant relative of NASA, has battled to continue flying the flag of creative scientific thinking at an undisclosed location in the wilds of East Williamsburg. Here, at the Brower Propulsion Laboratory, the tradition of fudging the frontiers between Art and Science that was so dear to Leonardo da Vinci, is being upheld with single-minded purpose and limited resources. With refreshing simplicity, the Brower Propulsion Laboratory’s statement of Philosophy notes that “The basic goal of each mission at BPL is to do something.”

Over many years the founder and CEO of BPL, Steven Brower has consolidated an impressive bank of experience and knowledge, not only carrying out secret research and experiments but also hand fabricating many significant artifacts of space exploration, past, present and future. Such is Brower’s competence, versatility and originality in this domain, that despite the ambitious projects attempted by the laboratory, Brower has remained its sole employee.

Steven Brower’s use of metaphor explores a complex web of correspondences, contradictions and parallels between, for example, art and science, artists and astronauts, the art world and politics etc. The resulting projects have been presented internationally at numerous venues including PS1; The Sculpture Center; The Vienna Secession, and most recently this summer, at the Royal International Pavilion in Wales, where

Brower coordinated a funeral and memorial service for Conrad Carpenter, The Underemployed Astronaut.