The human species is facing growing threats on planet Earth, threats that include overpopulation, climate change, diminishing resources, and shortages in the energy, food and water supply. Even though we obviously need to better protect our home planet now, colonisation of our solar system might well be the ultimate solution for guaranteeing the long-term survival of our species. Yet a range of major technical innovations are needed before we can implant and sustain life away from Earth. One such important innovation will be terraforming – the process whereby a hostile environment, i.e. a planet that is too cold, too hot, or that has an unbreathable atmosphere, is altered to make it suitable for human life.

The artwork “new earth” focuses on the process of transformation of a natural environment through energy input. This process is dialectic as it can be either creative or destructive. The driving element in this transformation is the sun. Such a process is no futuristic scenario but represents exactly what is happening on Earth at this moment as the process of atmospheric change brought about by increasing CO2 emissions heats up our planet and speeds up the process of climate change. Implicit in this work is the paradox that we might need to transform Mars into a habitable environment precisely because we are transforming our home planet into an uninhabitable one. The work combines footage from Icelandic glacier regions with landscape images taken by the Curiosity rover on Mars.