How do we know that the future is here? When the evening news resembles the fantasy novels of our youth? When current documentary images feel like movies filmed by a director who’s slipped into a daydream? Or when things we couldn’t even imagine become constants of daily life?
PHOTOGRAPHY BY VINCENT FOURNIER TEXT BY ONUR UYGUN
‘The passion I feel for space started at a young age and never wavered’, says Vincent Fournier. In fact, it’s possible to interpret his words as applying to all of humanity. The moment we stood on our two feet, we started looking up at the sky. The sacred discipline known as science began with our stargazing and as we stared at space, we discovered physics, documented it, then dismantled it, only to do it all again. As if that weren’t enough, our curiosity led us to put dogs into metal boxes and launch them up into space, to send vehicles transporting greetings from Earth beyond our solar system. A considerable portion of our collective imagination centres around space, and space research looms large amongst our images and expectations for the future. This admiration for the big, dark void is one of those things that make us who we are.
Vincent Fournier’s Space Project, a photography series that has been underway since 2007, takes a close look at this obsession. The project owes its inspiration to Fournier’s expeditions, first to the famous Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii and then to an observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The contrast between the ancient and timeless landscapes and the futuristic architecture of observatories left Fournier in awe. So far, the 13-year-long project has taken him to the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, to Star City in Russia, to the deserts of Utah – a location which serves as a substitute for Mars in various tests by NASA – as well as to the Netherlands and Norway. As someone who has managed to visit the world’s most iconic space research centres, Fournier’s images appear cinematic and sterile at first glance. It is only when one remembers that they are documentary photographs that the fiction turns into reality, revealing just how close we are to the future.
How do we know that the future is here? When the evening news resembles the fantasy novels of our youth? When current documentary images feel like movies filmed by a director who’s slipped into a daydream? Or when things we couldn’t even imagine become constants of daily life?
PHOTOGRAPHY BY VINCENT FOURNIER TEXT BY ONUR UYGUN
‘The passion I feel for space started at a young age and never wavered’, says Vincent Fournier. In fact, it’s possible to interpret his words as applying to all of humanity. The moment we stood on our two feet, we started looking up at the sky. The sacred discipline known as science began with our stargazing and as we stared at space, we discovered physics, documented it, then dismantled it, only to do it all again. As if that weren’t enough, our curiosity led us to put dogs into metal boxes and launch them up into space, to send vehicles transporting greetings from Earth beyond our solar system. A considerable portion of our collective imagination centres around space, and space research looms large amongst our images and expectations for the future. This admiration for the big, dark void is one of those things that make us who we are.
Vincent Fournier’s Space Project, a photography series that has been underway since 2007, takes a close look at this obsession. The project owes its inspiration to Fournier’s expeditions, first to the famous Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii and then to an observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The contrast between the ancient and timeless landscapes and the futuristic architecture of observatories left Fournier in awe. So far, the 13-year-long project has taken him to the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, to Star City in Russia, to the deserts of Utah – a location which serves as a substitute for Mars in various tests by NASA – as well as to the Netherlands and Norway. As someone who has managed to visit the world’s most iconic space research centres, Fournier’s images appear cinematic and sterile at first glance. It is only when one remembers that they are documentary photographs that the fiction turns into reality, revealing just how close we are to the future.
How do we know that the future is here? When the evening news resembles the fantasy novels of our youth? When current documentary images feel like movies filmed by a director who’s slipped into a daydream? Or when things we couldn’t even imagine become constants of daily life?
PHOTOGRAPHY BY VINCENT FOURNIER TEXT BY ONUR UYGUN
‘The passion I feel for space started at a young age and never wavered’, says Vincent Fournier. In fact, it’s possible to interpret his words as applying to all of humanity. The moment we stood on our two feet, we started looking up at the sky. The sacred discipline known as science began with our stargazing and as we stared at space, we discovered physics, documented it, then dismantled it, only to do it all again. As if that weren’t enough, our curiosity led us to put dogs into metal boxes and launch them up into space, to send vehicles transporting greetings from Earth beyond our solar system. A considerable portion of our collective imagination centres around space, and space research looms large amongst our images and expectations for the future. This admiration for the big, dark void is one of those things that make us who we are.
Vincent Fournier’s Space Project, a photography series that has been underway since 2007, takes a close look at this obsession. The project owes its inspiration to Fournier’s expeditions, first to the famous Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii and then to an observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The contrast between the ancient and timeless landscapes and the futuristic architecture of observatories left Fournier in awe. So far, the 13-year-long project has taken him to the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, to Star City in Russia, to the deserts of Utah – a location which serves as a substitute for Mars in various tests by NASA – as well as to the Netherlands and Norway. As someone who has managed to visit the world’s most iconic space research centres, Fournier’s images appear cinematic and sterile at first glance. It is only when one remembers that they are documentary photographs that the fiction turns into reality, revealing just how close we are to the future.
POSITOPIA
17
OUT NOW
is a large format international biannual magazine from Istanbul. Focusing on arts, culture and society, each issue tackles various universal subjects within a distinct theme.
Address
Mim Kemal Öke Cad. No.6 D.6 Nişantaşı, Şişli, İstanbul, Turkey
+90 212 232 4288
contact@212magazine.com
POSITOPIA
17
OUT NOW
is a large format international biannual magazine from Istanbul. Focusing on arts, culture and society, each issue tackles various universal subjects within a distinct theme.
Address
Mim Kemal Öke Cad. No.6 D.6 Nişantaşı, Şişli, İstanbul, Turkey
+90 212 232 4288
contact@212magazine.com
POSITOPIA
17
OUT NOW
is a large format international biannual magazine from Istanbul. Focusing on arts, culture and society, each issue tackles various universal subjects within a distinct theme.
Address
Mim Kemal Öke Cad. No.6 D.6 Nişantaşı, Şişli, İstanbul, Turkey
+90 212 232 4288
contact@212magazine.com