Maisy Wyeth shares the first piece of art made in space, created in 1965 by Alexei Leonov, the first human to walk in space. His ‘Orbital Sunrise’ sketch signposts a key point in history: space race, Cold War, the heart of the Great Acceleration’s mass consumption and rapid environmental transformation.
Museum of the Anthropocene: ‘Orbital Sunrise’ Sketch, Alexei Leonov
“We are no longer a small world on a big planet. We are a big world on a small planet.”
— Rockstorm and Klum, 2015
This simple pencil sketch was the first piece of art made in space, drawn by artist-cum-cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, depicting an orbital sunrise. A product of the post-war Great Acceleration and Space Race, it offers an opportunity to reflect on the beauty and fragility of our planet and on humanity’s place in the cosmos.
Alexei Leonov is best remembered for being the first man to walk in space, but he was also a keen artist. This drawing, although simple, is the first piece of art made in space.
Leonov’s 12-minute space walk and his attempt to reboard the Voskhod 2 presented one of the many close calls of this voyage. With Leonov’s spacesuit having expanded while outside the spacecraft, he had to slowly release oxygen from his suit to be able to fit back inside.
During the ninety-minute wait within the airlock, Leonov took to drawing. Among the small amount of belongings he was allowed to bring on the voyage, Leonov had a set of colouring pencils tied together with string. With these he set about capturing one of the many orbital sunrises of the trip.
The story behind this piece signposts a key point in history. The space race, and accompanying Cold War, represent an important part of global politics and modern history. The date of this drawing, 18th March 1965, places it at the heart of the post-war Great Acceleration. This was a period of mass consumption and rapid environmental transformation; it was also the period in which science-fiction became an outlet for ideas around infinite growth and of ‘space age romanticism’.
While the surface of the Earth has been subjected to enclosure and territorialisation, outer space is is still understood as a kind of commons. Yet it is also popularly referred to as the ‘final frontier’, a notion which seems to invite new forms of colonisation and enclosure. As countries and corporations vie for access to things like moon resources, perhaps space too risks becoming part of a wider ‘tragedy of the commons’.
Space exploration arguably helped to cement a new twentieth century environmental consciousness, as images like Leonov’s brought home the fundamental fragility of our small planet, and of our shared fate upon it. Yet space exploration also might entrench inequalities, as billionaires engage in their own ‘space races’, and the rich speculate about ‘space tourism’ or even extra-planetary settlement.
Leonov’s drawing invites us to reimagine our relations not only with space, but with Earth too. It also asks us to reconsider the relations between art and science, and to consider how their combination might bring about new ways of seeing and being in our ever-changing world.
The orbital perspective of this drawing simultaneously captures the fragility of our planet, and the expansiveness of space. It provides stillness, and an opportunity to reflect on the beauty of our planet and of our solar system.
Although photographs of space existed before this drawing came to be, it still played a key role in imagining space and how we each interpret it. Reflecting on space as a reminder of fragility, or as a pathway for infinite development.
This is an emotional image that changes our view of our place in the cosmos. Considering what it has taken to get here, how tiny we are, the value of fragility and our existence, what has happened before and what happens next.
Notes
‘Orbital Sunrise’ Sketch, Alexei Leonov was contributed by Maisy Wyeth. Maisy says: “Throughout my degree, I found a keen interest in the extent of capitalism — this project was perhaps the most enjoyable exploration of this topic I have had in my three years. Having enjoyed exploring the complex interconnectedness of our world, I am now going into teaching to hopefully share this passion with the next generation.”
You can read more about Leonov, his historic space mission and ‘Oribital Sunrise’ sketch in First picture drawn in space to appear in cosmonauts show in London, published by The Guardian (31st August 2015).
‘The Great Acceleration’ features in our Anthropocene Glossary, along with other terms and concepts (such as ‘Tragedy of the Commons’) that we use to talk about this novel (or, at least, newly recognised, but deeply rooted) planetary age and how our material cultures shed light on its complexities and challenges. This FutureEarth page discusses a dashboard of 24 indicators from the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and Stockholm Resilience Centre, depicting the dramatic acceleration in human enterprise and the impacts on the Earth system over the last two centuries. “What is apparent is the synchronous acceleration of trends from the 1950s to the present day – over a single human lifetime – with little sign of abatement. These trends are known as the Great Acceleration.”
The Guardian’s (6/1/24) story, Moon’s resources could be ‘destroyed by thoughtless exploitation’, Nasa warned, discusses concerns over how “lunar industrialisation now seems a real prospect. This will help science by bringing down launch costs but, astronomers stress, should not involve the reckless destruction of sites that are unique to the moon and invaluable to science.”