Our Place in Space, 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, has announced the next stops on it’s collision course in the UK.
Such was the response to the popular installation, which has already been experienced by over 300,000 people in Derry~Londonderry, Belfast and Cambridge to date, organisers were asked to squeeze in an extra stop in Liverpool from 14 October–6 November 2022 before touching down in the grounds of the Ulster Transport Museum at Cultra, North Down in February 2023.
Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet Member for Culture and Visitor Economy, Councillor Harry Doyle, said: “We are delighted that UNBOXED have chosen Liverpool as the final stop for Our Place In Space this year. As the solar system takes over our city centre we are celebrating the return of our major festival River of Light, welcoming the World Gymnastic Championships 2022 and are the centre of the art world as Tate Liverpool plays host to The Turner Prize. Liverpool is the only place to be this Autumn for brilliant, free entertainment.”
Free to visit and featuring scale models of the Sun and planets, recreated as contemporary art sculptures the Autumn trail begins on Church Street in the heart of Liverpool city centre and will run along the riverside all the way to Otterspool. Colourful arches house each planet with an arrow and the name of the planet lit up in Las Vegas style lights.
The trail is accompanied by the free Our Place in Space augmented reality app, available on Apple and Android, which allows users across the world to take a journey through the solar system, experiencing the planets in augmented reality and considering 10,000 years of human history on Earth. On the trail, users are invited to collect space souvenirs, including characters from the world of Oliver Jeffers, as well as launch a personalised star into space.
The trail will then return to Northern Ireland and weave its way onto the North Down Coastal Path, ending with Pluto in Bangor. The trail will launch in late February, accompanied by an exciting events and learning programme for people of all ages.
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.
David Lewis, Executive Producer at 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.”
The last destination for our super-squashed solar system is at the Ulster Transport Museum, Cultra in February '23
Our Place in Space is one of 10 major creative projects commissioned as part of UNBOXED: Creativity, a celebration of creativity taking place across the UK this year. UNBOXED features free large-scale events, installations and globally accessible digital experiences in the UK’s most ambitious showcase of creative collaboration.
Our Place in Space is commissioned by UNBOXED and Belfast City Council. Led by Nerve Centre, the project is a collaboration between Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen’s University Belfast, National Museums NI, NI Science Festival, Big Motive, Taunt, Microsoft, Jeffers & Sons, Dumbworld, Live Music Now, Little Inventors, and Urban Scale Interventions.