Amateur Photographer – 20 July 2019

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© MONICA ALCA Z AR DUARTE © MONICA ALCA Z AR DUARTE

© NASA

O

pened at the start
of July at the Royal
Photographic Society’s
(RPS’s) gleaming new
Bristol headquarters, its major new
exhibition ‘Space Steps: The Moon
and Beyond’ explores the journey of
Apollo 11. It is illustrated by some of
the most iconic photography of the
20th century, as well as telling some
of the lesser-known stories of how
the mission came together.
Keen to also put a contemporary
twist to the show, British-Mexican
photographer Monica Alcazar-
Duarte’s project, Ascension,
an interactive installation that
demonstrates how facilities across
Europe are playing a part in today’s
space race, is also on display.
A few weeks before the exhibition
opening, I went to Bristol to meet
Monica, as well as the curator of
the exhibition, Debbie Ireland (also
known for her book Hasselblad and
the Moon Landing), to find out
more about what was to come.
At the time of writing, the
exhibition had yet to be finalised,
but we already knew it amounted to

around 80-100 images. According

to Debbie, putting it together was

made easier with the help of NASA.

‘You can go back and look at all the

photography since they started their

first missions,’ she explains. ‘You

can also go back and look at what

other people were doing, such as the

Russians, to get the context.’

Wanting to bring today’s space

missions into context against the

backdrop of the Apollo 11 mission

some 50 years earlier, Monica

Alcazar-Duarte’s project seemed

like the ideal fit for the RPS.

She tells me, ‘You realise what’s

happening today because of that

context. Why it is that certain

people are using certain types of

language – people like Elon Musk

• how they’re presenting Mars
  as this aspirational thing, just in
  the same way as the moon was
  presented back then.’
  Monica has been working on
  Ascension since 2014, and has
  found the European Space Agency
  (ESA) to be great partners to work
  with. ‘It took me about six months
  to get in, but they were amazing. I

just thought, I’m this little Mexican

and I’m in this huge place where

they test satellites that are going

to Mercury and so on. One of

the places I photographed is the

anechoic chamber, which is where

they test antennas, so it’s completely

soundproof and has these spikes

that look like something out

of science fiction. There was a

technician opening a path for me,

and moving things so I could get

a better image. I’m just thinking,

“Wow this is amazing, this is

crazy.” They gave me a whole day to

photograph that after six months of

me going “please, please, please”.’

Monica’s project will culminate –

possibly – with a trip to NASA in

Houston at the end of the year. As is

so often the case with projects, her

access came via a chance encounter.

‘I was at a dinner party and I met

somebody who retired recently

• the head of human studies at
  NASA for all of the Apollo missions.
  Somebody started talking about my
  work and said they could put me in
  touch with the right person – it’s
  kismet really. They [NASA] have a

Far left: Monica

has been working

on her Ascension

project since

2014, visiting the

European Space

Agency (ESA)

on numerous

occasions. This

image shows

freefall training

RPS EXHIBITION

A new exhibition celebrates previous Moon missions, as well as

looking ahead. Amy Davies discovers more at the RPS in Bristol

now

Then

and

Left: An image

taken at the

Lunar-Mars

workshop