Lauren Orchowski shares images from her series Rocket Science looking at The Cold War era rocket ship playgrounds located throughout North America. Orchowski shares why what inspires her to make work.
Could you explain your work in two sentences?
I’m currently influenced by the environmental and political state of the planet, and the effect that this has on our threatened scientific landscape and our survival as a species. I make work that responds to these ideas, utilising large-format film cameras to document and re-envision our relationship to astrophysical environments for many of my projects.
What one thing has most helped to shape your practice?
The future.
Why photography? Why the still image?
I’m pretty sure it’s the closest thing to time travel, other than sense of smell.
Where do your ideas begin?
When I was 7, I began to make work with an idea to document everything industrial along the Hudson River. That was nearly four decades ago. My work has proliferated in a cyclical universe ever since, and I keep returning to the concept of outer space and then back to Earth. While photographing everything in my path, I edit and I return to what makes my heart and brain race over and over again.
What’s next?
Completing and editing my documentation of the towns surrounding the rocket ship playgrounds [which I photographed as part of my Rocket Science project]as we approach the 2020 presidential election in the USA, and then heading towards a quiet, protected, dark-sky landscape to process it all.
For more from Lauren’s work. click here.
For more from #3 Space, click here.
