Friday December 13 2024
Swindon & Wiltshire News
Since humans first looked up to the sky at night we have been able to see the moon. But to see the earth on which we evolved, in its entirety, has only been possible since 1967.
The view of our planet as an island surrounded by black inhospitable space was thought so powerful that NASA was successfully campaigned in 1966, by writer and counterculturist Stewart Brand, to release a whole earth satellite image. Stewart, with the help of an LSD trip, was convinced that such an image would have the power to change how we think about the planet in relation to ourselves.
In November 1967, the communications and weather satellite ATS-3 was launched and, on 10th November, beamed back the first full image of planet earth. Stewart used it on the cover of his self-sufficiency magazine (and print ancestor of Google), Whole Earth Catalog.
Then five years later in 1972, the Apollo 17 mission took a photograph of earth on their way to the moon. The resulting picture, nicknamed the ‘Blue Marble’, became the mostly widely distributed image ever, galvanising a generation of environmentalists.
After the phenomenal success of his Museum of the Moon sculpture – 10 million visitors and counting worldwide since its launch at the 2016 Bristol Balloon Fiesta, Bristolian artist Luke Jerram was commissioned in 2018 to create GAIA.
Both artworks (and Mars seen at Aerospace Bristol back in May) are scale interpretations of the moon and earth created using detailed NASA satellite imagery.
This summer Gaia was seen locally at Reading Climate Festival and Museum of the Moon at Newbury Corn Exchange.
Mars at Aerospace Bristol (left) and Museum of the Moon at Newbury Corn Exchange 2023, photos © Business Biscuit
Museum of the Moon’s latest installation is in Palestine’s West Bank (following in the artistic footsteps of another Bristolian artist, Banksy) but you can also see Gaia closer to home in Bath Abbey, where the scientific accuracy of 1:1.8 million scale using 120dpi satellite imagery combines with the spiritual awe of a vaulted religious setting.
Luke follows Steward Brand in his hopes Gaia will inspire respect for our planet and action to protect it, whether as God’s creation or because there is no Planet B: “I hope visitors to Gaia get to see the Earth as if from space; an incredibly beautiful and precious place. An ecosystem we urgently need to look after – our only home. Halfway through the Earth’s sixth mass extinction, we urgently need to wake up, and change our behaviour. We need to quickly make the changes necessary, to prevent run away climate change.”
Gaia exhibits at Bath Abbey until 29 October, during Abbey opening hours.
Fancy something a bit more down to earth and, well, edible? How about Luke Jerram’s Chocolate Smash?
Five iconic Bristolian objects – a button, Concorde, ship’s wheel, medicine bottles and Alfred the Gorilla – have been recreated in gold foil-covered one metre-size statues of fairly traded chocolate by local makers, Zara’s Chocolate.
Currently they are on display at Aerospace, Bristol Zoo Project, National Trust Tyntesfield, Glenside Hospital Museum and M-Shed.
At St George’s Bristol on 21st October, the five edible works of art will be brought together – and smashed!
Tickets are free, and attenders can enjoy some (but not all, greedy!) of the chocolate, and talks by Luke himself and historian Dr Richard Stone, or maybe even smash the chocolate. Afterwards, Luke will wrestle the remaining chocolate away to help The Trussell Trust distribute to food banks in the city.
To wield a choccy hammer and chisel and don safety googles to protect eyes from low flying sharp candy corners, you have to be age 18 plus, ‘in reasonable health’ and undergo ‘basic training’.
The project, Edible Histories, was funded by West of England Combined Authority as part of the Bristol 650 celebrations.
Photo: Gaia by Luke Jerram at University of Bristol 2019, Wills Memorial Building, © Business Biscuit. ‘It was then that we realised the Pacific Ocean is reeeeally huge and Great Britain, really small (where was it?)…’
10.11.2023
