'Space Utopia': by Vincent Fournier

Space Utopia collects over a decade of Fournier’s work surrounding space exploration on earth. Evoking a tenacious nostalgia toward the science fiction of the twentieth century, his photographs reflect on international space travel over generations. His latest work consists of several NASA Space Centers (including Houston and Cape Canaveral) and presents the world’s most powerful rocket, SLS, which will launch astronauts in the agency’s Orion spacecraft on missions to an asteroid and eventually to Mars.

Such images remind us of a time when space was still an unknown territory; a time when the race for discovery was broadcasted worldwide in black and white. Through his eerie perspective, and sometimes humorous approach, Fournier connects these romanticised memories of the past to both the present and the possibilities of the near future - exactly 50 years after ‘one small step for man’ landed on the moon.

Fournier has had unparralled access to various NASA space and research centers alongside facilities such as the European Space Agency (ESA), the Russian space agency (Roscosmos) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Thus, Space Utopia not only reflects his own artistic interpretation of these space programs, but also acts as a documentation of the way humans approach outer space and adds a question mark to our utopian view on space travel as real life science fiction.