Light shapes how we see the world—and how we understand it. It illuminates, reveals, inspires, and guides. Darkness, by contrast, can obscure, challenge, and invite us to imagine what lies beyond the limits of perception. Together, they have long served as powerful metaphors for discovery, creativity, knowledge, and mystery.

GBH Forum Network is partnering with Catalyst Conversations to bring you an event that bridges disciplines and invites curiosity. Photographic artist Marsha Wilcox, astrophysicist Sara Seager, and moderator Jennifer Roberts explore light and darkness from strikingly different perspectives. Their conversation spans art and science, from the expressive power of light in visual culture to the search for distant worlds, the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, and the ways illumination—both literal and metaphorical—changes how we understand ourselves and the universe.