There’s something magical about seeing our fair planet shrunken down to a size that allows us to peer all over it. Being able to point out where we are, where we’ve been, where we want to go. Or even just marvelling at the beauty of Earth when viewed as a whole singular object. This explains the ever-enduring appeal of Luke Jerram’s stunning large-scale artworks. His pieces, which include Gaia – a model of Earth – and the Museum of the Moonare hugely captivating. And while they are leaps and bounds smaller than the celestial bodies they depict, they tower above the viewers. They are at once enormous and relatively tiny.
Fans of Jerram’s Gaia will be pleased to know that the stunning artwork is winging its way back to London, to drop down at Southwark Cathedral. The planetary artwork will be visible from October 17 – November 2. And tickets cost just £5 to take in the awe-inducing installation.
Gaia
The touring art piece measures an impressive 7 metres in diameter, and is made using “120dpi detailed NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface”. It’s an accurately scaled rendition of Earth, with each centimetre of the sculpture encompassing 18 kilometres of real-world distance. That makes the artwork 1.8 million times smaller than the real Earth.
Through the years, Gaia has been on quite the world tour, stopping off in Finland, France, Qatar, the USA, Korea, and more. Meanwhile, future display dates include the likes of Langfang, China, and Bolton in the UK, with many more to be announced. A model of Earth touring the Earth… Does it get more meta than that?
Don’t fret too much if you miss out on this iteration, because another Gaia artwork is also visible at UCL East Marshgate as a permanent installation. (But, honestly, seeing it in a cathedral is a whole other experience!) And another chance to see the artwork will definitely arise in the near future.
Gaia will be on display at Southwark Cathedral from October 17-November 2. Grab your tickets here.
