Interior Space: A Visual Exploration of the International Space Station

Interior Space Project Idea

The Interior Space Project was conceived when NASA astronaut Cady Coleman encouraged me to find a way to share my photographic vision and technical approach with astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS). Cady was familiar with my photography of deactivated and repurposed space launch and test facilities which are encompassed in a project entitled Abandoned in Place. As remote a possibility as this idea seemed at the time, I honored Cady's request and drafted a proposal to collaboratively document the interior of the ISS with an astronaut who I could direct in making photographs. My goal for the project was to explore the ISS's interior in a combined documentary and abstract manner and to accomplish this mainly through available light photography. Cady liked the idea, and she connected me with Italian astronaut, Paolo Nespoli. As it turned out, Paolo was the perfect partner with whom to collaborate on Interior Space. Paolo has extensive photography experience himself.

Along with the collaborative images of the interior of the ISS, Interior Space contains photographs Paolo made of the Space Shuttle Endeavour docked at the ISS while he departed on a Soyuz spacecraft and images I made of ISS processing, training, and research facilities around the United States. Coupling these Earth-based images with the collaborative photographs Paolo and I made allows Interior Space to tell a broad visual story of the overall ISS program. All images of the ISS in orbit are courtesy of NASA and ASI.