'Our Place in Space' solar system trail is landing back in Northern Ireland next year.
A recreation of our solar system as a 10 km sculpture trail designed by artist Oliver Jeffers, astrophysicist Professor Stephen Smartt and a creative team led by Nerve Centre is coming to North Down in February.
It has already been experienced by over 300,000 people in Derry, Belfast and Cambridge to date.
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Free to visit and beginning in the grounds of the Ulster Transport Museum at Cultra, the trail will weave its way onto the North Down Coastal Path and end with Pluto in Bangor. The trail will launch in late February, accompanied by an exciting events and learning programme for people of all ages.
Stretching over 10 km, the installation features scale models of the Sun and planets, recreated as contemporary art sculptures. Colourful arches house each planet with an arrow and the name of the planet lit up in Las Vegas-style lights.
At a scale of 591 million to one, the Sun is 2.35 metres across, Earth is 2.2 centimetres and Pluto just 4 millimetres.
Our Place in Space, part of UNBOXED: Creativity, invites participants to consider how we might better share and protect our planet in future and what is the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’? The project aims to bring our solar system down to Earth and send us soaring into the stars to find new perspectives and reconsider what it means to live life on our planet.
David Lewis, Executive Producer at the Nerve Centre, said: “Following a successful summer in Cambridge, the opportunity arose to showcase the trail in Liverpool before bringing it home in 2023. The detour is a fantastic opportunity to allow thousands more people to engage with the project and to enable more people to learn about space — all while continuing to highlight Northern Ireland’s creativity across the UK.”
Kathryn Thomson, Chief Executive Officer at National Museums NI, said: “Welcoming Our Place in Space to the Ulster Transport Museum in February is a significant opportunity for us to invite people to engage with arts, science and heritage in new ways. The museum tells the story of ingenuity and innovation in this part of the world in our past, and we’re excited to launch the next chapter of this story through Our Place in Space.”
UNBOXED: Creativity is funded and supported by the four governments of the UK and is commissioned and delivered in partnership with Belfast City Council, Creative Wales and EventScotland.
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