Mid-pandemic, like much of the world, I was having an existential crisis. Each day, I frantically researched alternative careers away from photography that did not rely on human contact, increasingly despondent at losing the thing I loved: my “backstage pass to life”.
A friend in tech pointed me towards a tweet from Elon Musk about dearMoon: a weeklong artists’ residency around the Moon aboard SpaceX’s Starship, funded by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, known as MZ.
It sounded far-fetched, but with nothing to lose, I applied. After months of being whittled down from a million applicants to a crew of eight, I got the call: “Will you go to the moon with me?” It is difficult to explain what being selected for space feels like. There was euphoria, unworthiness and a paralysing sense of responsibility – as the only woman, as the first Irish person selected to go to space, and as a queer person – I had a lot to live up to.
[ Meet Ireland’s first person bound for spaceOpens in new window ]
“Going to space” became my defining characteristic. It preceded me everywhere, dwarfing every other part of my personality and minimising anything I had achieved before it. There was no choice but to lean in to it, because at times it felt as though nothing else remained. It occupied every waking thought and filled every dream. For three years I lived and breathed it as my reality.
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Then, in June 2024, MZ pulled out and cancelled the project, leaving us bereft and directionless. How do you return to ordinary life after preparing to leave the planet? Nothing could compete with the immensity of what had been promised; every other possible future felt diminished by comparison.
Rhi-Entry emerged from that void: from trying to understand how I was supposed to resume life when the only future I wanted had disappeared, and everything else felt like a consolation prize.
Rhi-Entry, an exhibition by Rhiannon Adam, runs at The International Centre for the Image in Dublin until December 23rd.
