La grande illusion

2023
Installation
Exhibition La Grande Illusion
Zone d'art contemporain
Centre national d'etudes spatial CNES
Paris, France

Left display: 242,5 x 217 x 100 cm
Right display: 314 x 224 x 100 cm

Wooden battens, cardboard, fabric, padding, zipper, Velcro strip, curtain rail, fabric print (NASA's Curiosity Mars rover panorama, NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

Stefan Eichhorn takes over the Zone d'art contemporain at the Observatoire de l'Espace, the French space agency's cultural laboratory, with an installation of upholstered fabric elements and wood. Using these modest, modular materials, he transforms the exhibition space into an ephemeral habitat inspired by terrestrial missions that simulate some of the living conditions envisaged on other planets. The work thus borrows from the codes of a space mission, while at the same time playing on the fake aspect of this reconstitution. This in situ work also led Stefan Eichhorn to conceive the glass space of the Zone d'art contemporain, visible but not accessible to visitors, as a materialization of a future that seems within reach yet still eludes humanity. In this way, the artist presents the extraterrestrial environment as a film set, and questions our dreams of space travel.