Beyond Earth Flies Largest Installation to Space on Spaceship Neptune

Space Perspective partners with individual artists and arts organizations from around the world that one would not think as traditionally being involved in human spaceflight. We launched our first in a series of robust collaborations with artists, students and other creators.

The art collective Beyond Earth, the inaugural art guest collaborator, created Living Light, the largest art installation ever to travel to space, which it did on a Neptune test flight in 2021. Echoing the shape of Spaceship Neptune’s capsule and the appearance of a jellyfish, the installation represented a shared mission to amplify the essential biodiversity and interdependency of all living organisms - specifically hidden ocean life rarely included in the story of life on planet Earth.

Carried inside Living Light, a DNA capsule comprised three art pieces by each of the artists of Beyond Earth. In a message “To Space, from Earth,”  each work was converted to DNA and stored inside a metal vial. The timelessness of the DNA vial contrasts with the transitory nature of Living Light’s journey, a metaphor for human life on Earth. Upon returning to Earth, the DNA will have changed - reconfigured - echoing the human experience of seeing Earth from the perspective of space.

“We are thrilled to connect our deep fascination with the ocean biome to space exploration, drawing parallels between aquatic and aeronautic explorations,” said Beyond Earth, Richelle Gribble, Elena Soterakis, and Yoko Shimizu.