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Aerocene Pacha, a fuel-free hot air balloon, lifted a person into the sky, landing safely back on earth using only the sun and air we all breathe… Aerocene Pacha webpage includes more details about how we— in an ethical alliance with all who we share this planet with and elemental energies—can break the toxic bond with fossil fuels and the extractive ideologies underpinning the Capitalocene. The aerosolar sculpture carries an message high into the sky of the threatened territory of Salt flats like Salinas Grandes.
Floating completely free from fossil fuels, batteries, lithium, solar panels, helium, and hydrogen; this journey set 32 world records, recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) with the help of Aerocene pilot Leticia Noemi Marquès. We celebrated this world record attempt in Salinas Grandes, Argentina, inviting friends, cosmic webs, spiders, earth, air, mountains, suns, clouds, and bacteria to live differently in the Aerocene.
Over 50 years have passed since the first moon landing, achieved with the same patriarchal, nationalist and colonial ambitions that have depleted the world. This extractivist attitude is evidenced in the Salinas Grandes by the recent rush to mine lithium, furthering the man-made violence that incites climate change and mass extinction, the race to colonize space and disturbed balance of interconnected ecosystems.
Together we flew with Aerocene Pacha, with our feet on the ground, as planet earth, with an Andean ritual that connected what lies below and above the Earth’s surface with the furthest reaches of the cosmos, uniting space and time. A world-making event only history is now able to judge; our landing one small step in the air, one giant leap for this planet and its climate.
Fly with Aerocene Pacha was a project by Tomàs Saraceno for Aerocene Foundation as part of CONNECT, BTS, curated by Daehyung Lee.
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