MIR Dreams of Space

MIR - Dreams of Space presents new photographic, installation and video works by British and Russian artists reflecting the utopian idealism that spurred the start of the space age, and the enduring legacy of the Russian quest for Space.

The works were created through the MIR programme, a unique initiative which enables artists to work in conditions beyond the confines of Earth's gravity - in zero gravity and hypergravity - using facilities at the Yuri Gargarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, heart of the Russian space programme and one of the former 'closed cities' of the Soviet Union.

50 years after the launch of Sputnik, and at the start of a new millenium, with new aspirations to build the International Space Station and to reach Mars, it is timely that artists are reclaiming these territories, in a contemporary and very direct sense. MIR was commissioned by The Arts Catalyst, a UK arts organisation promoting links with science and space, and the MIR Consortium, a group of international organisations including Arts Catalyst, Projekt Atol (Slo), V2_Institute for the Unstable Media (NI), Transmediale (D), Leonardo/OLATS (Fr/Us), SpaceArtONe (FR), MoM (Sp) and the Multimedia Complex for Actual Art.

(UK): Using the TsF-18 centrifuge in Star City, Gec recorded the G-force exerted by the centrifuge on a celestial globe, prompting a re-examination of our age old fascination with the celestial sky.

Vadim Fishkin (Slovenia/Russia): Fishkin's film and installation translate time-based data into drops of water, and beautifully demonstrate the effects of Earth gravity and zerogravity on the droplets.

Yuri Leiderman (Russia): Leiderman's specially bred Kefir grains - monitored in variable gravity conditions - present a metaphor for Russian Cosmism's grandeur and disaster.

Evgeni Nesterov (Russia): Nesterov's photographic series documents Star City and the Ilyushin 76 MDK aircraft used for zero gravity flights during the 2003 MIR Campaign.

The Otolith Group (UK): Richard Couzins, Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar. Set in a mutant future where humans have set up permanent habitation in microgravity, the film 'Otolith' opens up the forgotten histories of the Space Age and uncovers a legacy of female exploration into the changing conditions of liberation and disorientation.

Carey Young (UK): Young's exquisite photographs illustrate the remnants of the nuclear fuelled space-race, the hero worship of Gagarin and the ironic spectacle of the pride of Russia's technological achievements displayed among knock-down western consumer goods.

MIR - Dreams of Space programme of documentary and artists films: Gravitation Off! THE ARTS CATALYST Centrifuge EWEN CHARDRONNET The Briefing EWEN CHARDRONNET Neutral Buoyancy EWEN CHARDRONNET Too G ANDREW KOTTING Zero Genie ANSUMAN BISWAS & JEM FINER Daedalo MARCELLI ANTUNEZ ROCA Zero MIKE STUBBS

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MIR Dreams of Space

Vadim Fishkin, Stefan Gec, Yuri Leiderman, Evgeni Nesterov, The Otolith Group (Kodwo Eshun, Anjalika Sagar, Richard Couzins), Carey Young