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.