Luke Jerram's art installation Mars will be Chichester Cathedral autumn highlight
On display from Saturday, October 19 to Sunday, November 10 in the ancient nave, the immersive artwork measures seven metres in diameter and features detailed NASA imagery of the Martian surface.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers, lovely this
00:06afternoon to speak to Luke Jerram. Now Luke, you are behind something incredibly exciting
00:11which is heading our way, and appropriately, coming to Chichester Cathedral, Mars, your
00:17art installation Mars. And it's been time to coincide with the anniversary of Holst's
00:23death, is it? Or birth, one or other. Birth, I think, isn't it? And it's opening very soon.
00:30Now tell me about the thinking behind Mars, because Mars means so much to different people,
00:34doesn't it? Yeah, it does. Yeah, I suppose it's quite a
00:40new artwork that I've made, but as a planet, it's been there a very long time. And it means
00:47different things to different people, depending on what they bring to it. So we've had astronomers
00:52get very excited, or geologists are able to look at the surface of Mars. In fact,
00:56this is a sample behind me of the surface of Mars, as you'll see. So it's all made of NASA imagery,
01:05made of, yeah, and then it's been printed, and then the whole artwork is sort of internally
01:10illuminated. The sculpture is going to be seven metres in diameter, and then suspended in the
01:16cathedral. And it will give the public a chance to see every valley and crater and mountain in
01:23perfect detail. So it's about a million times smaller than the actual Mars artwork itself.
01:30So one centimetre on this is about 10 kilometres, something like that.
01:34Wow. And you have a track record with the Earth.
01:36Yeah, it should be a really interesting opportunity. I'm sorry, I was just saying, you have-
01:39Yeah, the Earth, so we've made, yeah, Earth and the Moon before, that's right.
01:44Was this a very different space project, this one?
01:48No, it is all rather similar. It's all rather similar, but it's, yeah, it'd be interesting to
01:54see what people make of it. We've been looking at the Moon for thousands of years. So it's very
01:59romantic when people think about the surface of the Moon, and people think about the music that
02:03it's inspired, and the mythologies, and all those sorts of things. Whereas the Earth, we're looking
02:08at the Earth from space. Humanity's only been able to do that for about 60 years.
02:14Since the Apollo Moon missions, it's quite new. And again, Mars is quite new as well. The Romans
02:19used to describe Mars as the pink one, because it would move like a little dot in the sky,
02:25like a little star in the sky. So is there more mystery attached?
02:29But there'll be lots of events taking place. Yeah, I think there's more mystery, as you say,
02:33more mystery attached to Mars in that way. But it feels quite new for humanity, I think.
02:40We're going there now with space missions, and Mars rovers, and all that sort of stuff.
02:45So I think that mythology will build up over the coming years as humanity goes there more and more.
02:52And your Mars has already had an astonishing journey, or series of journeys. It seems to
02:56have been everywhere, hasn't it? It's probably been to about 10 countries
03:01so far, yeah, and been presented. It goes into light festivals, and science festivals,
03:07but also, yeah, cathedrals and all sorts of different contexts. So the context of where
03:12it's presenting, it sort of affects its interpretation, I suppose.
03:17And lovely to have the coincidence of Holst being buried in Chichester, in the cathedral.
03:23Yes, exactly. So I presume they're going to play Holst's Planets.
03:29Yeah, it should be amazing in that space. I can't wait to see that. Yeah,
03:32hopefully I'll come along and experience it myself.
03:35Fantastic. We're looking forward to seeing it. Lovely to speak to you, Luke. Thank you very much
03:39indeed. Yeah, thanks very much. It's nice to meet you.
03:42Thank you. Take care.