“Earth Rise” is an ongoing project, which started in 2016 in collaboration with 3 students from TU Delft. It comprises a series of globes researching different ways in which to represent our planet. Our current globes are using political maps. We see these political maps as representations of our world since primary school, but these maps are focusing exclusively on what divides us and - except for the contour of our continents - are denying the presence of the natural world entirely.

From space, political borders are not visible. In fact, they often do not even physically exist. Earth Rise is taking the image of earth as seen from space as the way we should represent our world in the future. This representation is showing the earth as it actually is and sees humanity as part of much bigger geological and climatic systems we entirely depend on.

It also has the ambition to enable in some way what has been called “The overview effect”: A radical psychological shift in consciousness astronauts experience in space. We ask ourselves what is truly important to us and how we fit into a greater whole. The experience is a subtle mix of both awe and a sense of our immense fragility. Here empowerment meets humility: We are after all connected to this immensity surrounding all the time.

The first version of a fully functioning moving globe was shown at CASCO in Amsterdam in a 30x40 meter space which was set in complete darkness with only the earth and the moon as shining celestial bodies floating above the ground. The earth was 30cm big and turning a full circle per 24h. A shield inside was hiding half of the light coming from within showing the night and day and would move according to the position of the earth relative to the sun: 1 full circle in 365 days. The moon was 9 meters away and 8 cm diameter only half lit and circling with an orbit of 18 meters around the earth in 27 days (2 meters a day).