Paper short abstract:

Presentation with projected images and printed art objects; activity with prepared cyanotype materials for participants. Attached image is from Moon Trees; images in the workshop will be much smaller.

Paper long abstract:

Space Shadows is an practice of capturing extraterran travelers in cyanotype prints, solidifying their shadows in chemically hardened sunlight. It began with the series Untitled (Moon Trees #1-7) in 2022, and continues now with Untitled (Rocket Parts) in 2024. For each iteration of Space Shadows, I make a series of cyanotype prints by using objects that have traveled through the atmosphere as the image matrix, and then exposing the image using sunlight. In this way, I am able to capture the “shadow” of extraterran travelers. Such a collaboration between earthling, solar energy, and space-artifact materializes a relationship of wonderment, finitude, and release that opposes the extractive national and corporate imaginations that dominate the current space age. It also enacts an immediate relationship of earthlings as creatures already engaged in cosmic encounters, without the mediation of industry. Moon Trees used leaves, twigs, and other detritus collected from the Moon Tree in Sewanee, TN, USA. This is one of several Moon Trees scattered across the USA, all of whom are grown from seeds sent into orbit around the moon on Apollo 14 in 1971 and planted on their return.Rocket Parts will be created by capturing impressions of a small rocket built and launched by Space Society Twente, a student organization at the University of Twente, NL, that seeks to find ways to make space a space for all. In this workshop, I will first present my work and then offer precoated papers for the participants to make their own prints.