(l, b)≃(209°, -57°) Galactic Coordinates  (2019)

In October 1959, the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft captured the first photographs of the Moon’s far side—revealing a hidden geography never before seen from Earth. Though grainy and low-resolution, these images reshaped our understanding of the cosmos, setting the stage for a future where space photography would expand not just our knowledge, but also our imagination. Today, as probes continue to send back extraordinary vistas from deep space, we accept these distant landscapes as reality, despite our inability to verify them firsthand. This acceptance requires a kind of pictorial faith—a belief that what photographs present to us is true.

The story of (l, b)≃(209°, -57°) Galactic Coordinates begins with a chance encounter in Kyiv in 2013. Among a street vendor’s collection of Soviet-era space relics—badges, books, and a novelty clock featuring Laika, the space dog—I discovered a box of photographs. At the bottom lay a forgotten stack of large-format negatives, their origins unknown.

This series employs the visual language of astronomical imaging to examine the role of photography in shaping belief. The negatives, stripped of context, suggest both microscopic and macroscopic studies, evoking scientific discovery while resisting definitive interpretation. The vendor speculated that his late uncle, a lifelong employee at Moscow’s Star City, may have once owned them—an unverifiable narrative that adds to the images’ ambiguity.

By inviting viewers to project meaning onto these cosmic abstractions, (l, b)≃(209°, -57°) Galactic Coordinates explores the fragile boundary between perception and truth. In an era of decentralised information—where ‘alternative facts’ proliferate, and an oversaturation of images blurs the line between fact and fiction—photography’s role in shaping knowledge is increasingly unstable. As we continue to push the limits of exploration, both in space and in information, one question remains: will we still trust the images that define our understanding of the universe?