“void space” shows the 58 m tall, 137 m wide and 31 m large assembly hall at Europe´s CSG spaceport in French Guiana. Inside this building an Ariane 5 launcher rocket is taking shape. A launch campaign begins in this facility with the positioning of Ariane 5’s core cryogenic stage over the mobile launch table. The two solid booster stages are then mated on its sides. The core stage is topped off with one of the upper stages and with the Vehicle Equipment Bay. The whole integration process takes about four weeks, after which the launcher is transferred to the Final Assembly Building to receive its payload. “void space” was photographed shortly after the Ariane 5 rocket left the building.

The artwork focuses on the enormous complexity of the 80,000m³ architectural structure needed to work on multiple horizontal and vertical levels to build the vehicle. The structure includes three main and dozens of secondary mobile levels. By showing the assembly hall without its object of desire, the work conceptually shifts the void – the obvious absence of the significant – into the center of perception. It’s a stage without an actor that allows viewers to see something previously hidden to their eyes. Here the stage itself becomes the actor.