Staging Wilderness
Work
2026
HD // Sound
3 mins 36 secs
This short video essay considers the ways in which leading space industry actors stage parts of the planet as "wilderness," and speaks to ethnographies that engage with the uneven, unjust, and earthly terrains which certain outer space activities are embedded within. It joins archival and contemporary imagery from the European Spaceport in French Guiana with footage of nuclear tests in the Nevada desert—pairing distinct landscapes which have been framed by selective perspectives and subjected to violent experiments.
The video departs from the phrase "rumble in the jungle," used by a broadcaster on an Arianespace livestream, as they described the Ariane 6 rocket launching from the spaceport. From here, the audiovisual juxtapositions aim to collide such ambivalent gestures of power with the wider social and environmental ramifications of the projects they help to stabilise.
Selected stills from Staging Wilderness (2026)