Our Place in Space: Artist Oliver Jeffers launches his latest creative project

The 10km walk, starting today from Bay Road Park in Derry, is a scale model of the solar system with large modern art sculptures to house each planet.

The goal is to encourage people to reflect on their place in the universe through the path, plus cultural events and workshops.

“It’s a way of looking at ourselves and how we work together across the only pieces of dry land habitable for human life in the known universe,” Jeffers said.

He has been fascinated by the night sky and the solar system since growing up as a boy in north Belfast.

“On a large scale, it is our local map. My first book was How to Catch a Star. This sense of the unknown and the great distances to change perspective has always been very interesting to me.”

The collaborative and challenging nature of Our Place in Space appealed to Jeffers.

He designed the concept and worked on it with the Nerve Center in Derry, Professor Stephen Smartt from the Astrophysics Research Center at Queen’s University Belfast and others.

Jeffers told the Belfast Telegraph he’s made a habit of working without forgiveness for extended periods, only biting off as much as he can chew and no more, but “it’s all going well”.

“It was very pleasant and successful. The Nerve Center was absolutely amazing at figuring out how to do things that I never would have had the ability to understand. And working with Stephen Smartt, who is not only a great astrophysicist but also a great science communicator, has been great too.”

He added: “It was so much fun. Such a great team. I suggest a wild idea or thing and other people figure out how to make it happen and how they do it.

“And there are enough reasonable voices to reason with me when something is totally impractical, but it was really great,” adds the artist.

“It cuts across education, science and art and at its core it’s an excuse to walk outside and see some large, contemporary, colorful sculptures.”

The project is a flagship order from UNBOXED; a UK celebration of creativity with 10 projects, five of which are coming to Northern Ireland in the coming months.

Our Place in Space runs until October 16th in three locations in Northern Ireland: Derry (until May 22nd), Divis and Black Mountain (July 30th – August 28th) and the North Down Coastal Route (September 17th – August 16th). October). It’s also going to Cambridge, England (July 30th to August 28th).

And tomorrow Oliver will be taking part in a Guinness World Record attempt in Derry to dress up as many people as astronauts in one place.

Jeffers said of his place in the universe: “I am a citizen, even a patriot, of planet Earth.

“I always liked the quote by Samuel Johnson, ‘Patriotism is the villain’s last resort.’

“I don’t like to identify with nations because nationalism, the international sense of the word, the boundaries for that are hard and sharp and uninviting, while on the other hand, cultures are more celebratory and soft-edged and that we all have to come from somewhere .

“Those stories about where we come from, rather than the hard edges defined by arbitrary lines drawn across swaths of land.”

Jeffers hopes Our Place in Space will make people reconsider their own priorities, behaviors, and what they think is really important.

“Especially with upcoming elections,” he said. “Whenever we ask people what they want, they tend to answer what they don’t want.

“If you break it down and really get under someone’s skin and start to figure out a person’s raw basic needs, all people, no matter where they come from and what background they come from, tend to want the same very simple things, which are dignity, community and matter. Kind of involved.”

The 44-year-old artist who keeps a close eye on Northern Ireland politics is a critically acclaimed author and illustrator whose art has been translated into over fifty languages ​​and sold around the world for children’s picture books.

He speaks of the “revenge identity politics” that he says has developed in Northern Ireland for so long.

“It was defensive and reactionary, rather than paying attention to how people actually want to spend their lives.

“I’ve started to realize that it has become a good analogy to illustrate to Americans when exactly the same crack is being built in the US. And you see it in the ‘climate’ debate, where people would rather be right than be better.”

Jeffers, his wife and their young children have been living in Belfast since just before the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown began because they wanted to be closer to family.

He’s also had a base in Brooklyn for 15 years, so they’re back and forth in the US.

Jeffers says he was drawn to the vibrancy of New York as a young man and ended up in Brooklyn because all artists were evicted from Manhattan in the early 2000s.

“New York seems to be the cultural center of the western world. I spent some time there in my 20’s and it just felt electric and alive and I knew I wanted to be there so I spent some time figuring out how I could be there and found a community of artists and dear friends and people I would consider family now.”

Growing up in north Belfast, Jeffers said he was able to see problems from different perspectives at the same time, which really shaped his work.

His love of art was nurtured at home and he believes art education is not what it could be.

“It was years before they thought of converting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) to STEAM. For me it was initially a way to detach myself from other things. It was a social value to have school bags and books to fall back on.”

Jeffers believes the ongoing undervaluation of the arts by decision-makers is short-sighted.

“We are still trapped in a very old system. Everyone is a cog in a machine and needs to learn the same basic skills, but that’s not really practical and not really relevant.

“Art does not result in a quantifiable stream of income that is predictable for an individual.

“A lot of people don’t really understand how art is made, or even wonder why, so it’s probably easier for them not to think about it.”

He speaks passionately about “courage and determination, steadfastness and humility among the people of Belfast” and notes that “Northern Ireland is home to some of the most wonderful people in the world”.

“We have a unique sense of humor, charm, wit, perspective and courage,” he said.

“Sometimes people would see me in a bar or restaurant and discourage me from staying, ‘isn’t it great that you’ve done so well even though you’re from Northern Ireland’ and it should be the other way around.

“You should be expected to do well coming from Belfast.

“We’re hitting way above our weight for a city with the population it has. I could give you hundreds of metropolitan areas of the same size in the UK, US and Europe that you have never heard of.

“There’s something in the water here. I think we should lean in a little more and realize that we have everything we need.

“We just have to move forward”

For more information about Our Place in Space, see ourplaceinspace.earth