Earthrise — the photograph Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders took of Earth rising over the lunar horizon on Christmas Eve, 1968 — is the starting point for Inploration: Art Exploring Space to Understand Earth, a new anthology from artist Richelle Ellis and creative director Lawrence Azerrad, published by DelMonico Books with a foreword by Frank White, the writer credited with coining the term “Overview Effect” for the shift in perspective astronauts report after seeing Earth from space.
Covered as an interview by designboom (published October 27), the book’s premise is direct: White’s Overview Effect has mostly been documented through astronaut testimony, because flying to orbit is the only way to get it firsthand. Ellis and Azerrad’s question is whether art — translating that view rather than simply reproducing the photograph — can carry some version of the same shift to people who will never leave Earth.
The anthology’s scope is wide by design: more than 50 contributors, spanning artists, scientists, astronauts, ecologists, and cultural thinkers. Named participants in the interview include Amber Straughn (deputy project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope), artists Cai Guo-Qiang, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Tavares Strachan, Rebeca Méndez, and Lita Albuquerque, physicist Fritjof Capra, musician Beatie Wolfe, physicist-writer Janna Levin, designer Forest Young, and activist Van Jones — a deliberately cross-disciplinary list rather than a single-field survey.
A few details anchor it beyond the premise: Azerrad previously worked on the 40th-anniversary edition of the Voyager Golden Record, which gives him a second, earlier credit in the space-and-culture overlap this book sits in. The book’s cover was reportedly updated at press time to use Artemis II imagery, several frames of which were shot on iPhones — a small but concrete sign of how fast the available source imagery for this kind of work is changing. A related program at MASS MoCA is planned for November 2027, alongside a companion LP release through Magnolia Record Store, so the project has a life planned beyond the book itself.