Barbara Amelia King, MA, MPhil
Barbara Amelia King, MA Visual Arts, MPhil Space Studies is Visual Artist, Media Producer, and Space Researcher. Barbara produces visual art, articles and documentaries encompassing the Universe and artful perspectives about it. With a background in traditional Western and digital art and a space studies degree, Barbara combines a polymathic tendency for the expression of space art and space research as vehicles for cultural upliftment and societal sustainability on Earth and off.
As Content Director at Full Circle Productions, Johannesburg, Barbara’s work at the intersection of history and culture encompasses thirty years in South Africa producing content, writing treatments, and directing edits. Her programming (seven TV series and over 30 documentaries) has aired in South Africa, over the African continent, in Europe, and in the USA. Ten film shorts were translated into Mandarin and aired on QQ in Asia.
Barbara has exhibited in over twenty exhibitions, highlighted by being the first Westerner to exhibit at the Museum of Timbuktu, Mali in the year 2000. Venues include the United Nations in Geneva, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Portales, Bamako, Timbuktu, Lagos, and Cape Town, South Africa. . Currently, she is included in the online art galleries for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the International Association of Astronomical Artists, and Space Renaissance International, and in the 7 Moons Symphony by Amanda Falkenberg.
Barbara presented and published papers online for: The Impulse to Draw, The Invention of Imagery, The Benefit for Space, (Accepted for the Int’l Astronautical Federation’s Congress in Paris, 2022) Space Artists: Creatives, Change Agents, Mission Specialists at Space Renaissance 2021 Space Artists and Scientists Dare to Care at the UN Commission on the Status of Women 2021 Insurgencies & Counter Insurgencies: So. African History through Art. Chapman Univ. CA, 2021 Artists as Activists: Illustrating artists whose work expressed a humanist agenda for the Art Centre, Cape Town, South Africa in 1993, Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, California in 1992 and 1993, and Educators for World Peace, Geneva, Switzerland in 1992 Barbara testified to the UN Human Rights Commission on the rights of Indigenous artists and South African democratic governance on behalf of Zulu King Zwelithini, Govan Mbeki, and Dali Tambo.
Her published work:
- The Limitless Horizons of Space Art, Springer, 2022
- When Art Was Science, Springer, 2022
- Karel Nel & COSMOS: A Far-Reaching Artist in Residency. Leonardo, 2022
- Space Art & Space Science: A Polymathic Paradigm Shift in the Art/Sci Dialogue, (Master’s Thesis, Space Studies University of Cape Town, 2020)
- Space and Water: The Cape Town Water Crisis. Space Lab Project. Springer Science 2020,
- Space Unites the World, South African National Space Agency (SANSA) website, Oct. 2018.
Barbara holds Organizational Memberships for Space Renaissance International (SRI), International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and the Int’l Astronautical Federation Technical Committee/Cultural Utilization of Space, (ITACCUS).
Barbara earned her Masters of Philosophy in Space Studies from the University of Cape Town, supervised by Peter Martinez, in South Africa in 2020. She was mentored in television production by Dali Tambo and Zwelakhe Sisulu and received Visual Arts specialization in drawing and painting at Otis Art Institute between 1985 to 1990. In 1983, Barbare earned her Master’s Degree of Arts in Fine and Studio Arts from Vermont College & Goddard Graduate School.
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