The environment of space provides unique challenges to artists that cannot be replicated or sufficiently represented on Earth’s surface. For the forthcoming book, Art in Orbit, interviews have been conducted with 10 artists who have deployed in space. These interviews have provided insights into why artists seek to deploy work in the environment of space - on board spacecraft or in open space – the challenges that they have faced, and the lessons that they have learned. Artists have forged partnerships with the spaceflight industry to assert the value of art practice in space, and have turned astronauts onto collaborators where there is a need for a third-party to deploy work on their behalf. In the work itself, artists have engaged with (dis)orientation, weightlessness, and the unexpected behaviour of their tools and materials in microgravity.

The paper will represent the important distinction between astroart that is inspired by space, and art that engages directly with the environment of space, such as art satellites. It approaches space as a site for art installation and production, as well as a source of inspiration. It considers the potential for art objects as celestial bodies, and the ethical implications of this practice. It locates these ideas in the context of the culturalization and democratisation of space.

This paper will consider the relationship between the visual arts and the environment of space, informed by interviews with artists including Trevor Paglen, Eduardo Kac, Lisa Pettibone, Jeanne Morel, Sana Sharma, Max Baraitser Smith, Yasmine Meroz and Liat Segal. It will discuss the nature of their work and their relationship with the spaceflight industry, and the challenges presented by the environment of space, as well as by the structures, constraints, and disciplinary assumptions that have shaped the deployment of their work. It will then consider the motivations that underpin these artists’ spaceworks, and the significance of their work for future artists and our spacefaring civilisation more broadly.

The paper considers how the interviewed artists are contributing to the establishment of a new field of practice with approaches and concerns that are distinct from those employed in a terrestrial environment. This includes discussion of the ways in which these artists are developing new tools and new production methods, where terrestrial tools and processes cannot operate as they do on Earth; the ways in which these artists are contributing to defining a new field of practice; and how, through their engagements with the environment of space, they have been prompted to critically reflect on their terrestrial experiences and practices.