The Poetic Impossibility to Manage the Infinite, 2014

In 2012 I approached the European Space Agency with a very ambitious proposal: to produce the most comprehensive survey ever assembled about a leading scientific and space exploration organization. For the first time in its history ESA  granted an artist exclusive and unparalleled access to all of its facilities, staff, programs, technology, private aerospace partners, etc.

This project was produced over a period of  18 months, documenting 15 separate facilities, located across the world, namely in the UK, Holland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, Kazakhstan, French Guiana, etc. These locations range from test centers, robotics departments, jet propulsion laboratories, space simulators, launch sites and launch platforms, astronaut training centers and training modules, satellites and technological components, payload/launcher assembly and integration rooms, etc.

The work engages with ESA and its partners’ programs –the microgravity, telecommunication, navigation, lunar and Mars exploration programs, among others–, whilst also reflecting on the new politics of space exploration as well as the impact of this kind of technological application on our social consciousness.

As someone who has always worked in hard-to-access environments, I am interested in the dialogue that these environments can provoke. There are multi-layered challenges for artists working within any established structure – cultural, ethical, legal. In the case of space exploration organisations this can be further exacerbated given the increasing privatisation and militarization of space and the constraints that these engagements can activate.

My main challenge was, therefore, to develop an approach that was simultaneously descriptive and speculative. Like a topographer or visual archaeologist I set out to discover and reveal the spectrum of possibilities awakened by the objects and places I visited, consequently, inviting a broader and more intricate experience of its hidden meanings.

This project explores the theme of space exploration with a strong sense of perspective, an understanding of the other sector’s operating culture and an unequivocal ability to articulate, critique and engage.