Loving Earth - PBF01 / Vincent Fournier
18 November 2016 to 18 January 2017
![© Vincent Fournier, Space Project - Mars Desert Research Station #11 [MDRS], Mars Society, San Rafael S 64 well, 2008.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e15b5e07c5a90209a738487/1584733088330-3S0GXJ1ISIGQHK7VXELA/Vincent+Fournier.png)
“Working on going into space was then my goal and I have thus entered l space organizations and launching sites all over the world – most space facilities inherited from the cold war.”
The “Space Project” series reflects my fascination for Space exploration through an archive of the most significant space complexes, facilities, and experiences from all over the world and all kinds of organizations. The definition of Space, according to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, is the point where the atmosphere becomes too thin to support aeronauticaights: the Kármán Jurisdictional Line at the altitude of 100 km. Below this boundary, Space belongs to each country, beyond, it would be free Space: the territory of the unknown fields, the kingdom of the extremes, where opposites live together and change our thinking. Such a perfect playground for the imagination! I have been looking at Space through all sorts of space observatories in Chile, the US, or the North Pole. Those machines are like ears and eyes, linking the two worlds, the seen and the unseen. Looking far beyond into Space is also looking into time as most stars or sounds we can record are the remains of passed time… I understood that utopia might become close to dystopia.
The experience of Biosphere 2, the world’s biggest self-sustaining replica of Earth’s ecosystems built in order to prepare future space colonization turned indeed into a magnificent failure. When I started this project in 2007, my vision was both ironic and nostalgic for this dream of a potential future that was federating our collective imagination. This project takes today a new echo with the development of a new kind of space exploration, led by the aerospace and robotics industries rather than the superpowers of yesteryears. The second act of my “Space Project” now comes with the dawn of private space exploration with the new race to the stars and the Lunar X-Prize, that I will document for the National Geographic magazine – the occasion to remind us that discoveries are largely driven by individuals with lots of personalities and audacious ideas. Imagination is the key.
