Biographie
Aurélien Goubau was trained at the ESA, le 75 school in Brussels, from which he graduated in 2022. "Znamya" is his graduation work. This series was published by the Belgian and Dutch press and awarded the Roger De Conynck prize and the Mark Grosset prize (Promenades Photographiques de Vendôme). Since then, Aurélien Goubau works for the press in the Netherlands and Belgium.
He has been a member of the Hans Lucas agency since November 2021.
He is currently participating in the Régnier Fund mentoring program in partnership with the VU' agency. This sponsorship will end with an exhibition at the VU' gallery in Paris in September 2023.
Présentation
In the 1990s, a team of Russian scientists set up a giant space mirror to reflect sunlight back to Earth, so as to light up northern Russia during the polar night. It worked. For a few seconds. The project was called "Znamya," which means "banner" in Russian.
In 2021, a similar project was announced by the governor of the city of Murmansk, who promised inhabitants the construction of an artificial sun over his city. In doing so, he resurrected the old ambitions of Znamya, but once again, these populist announcements did not become reality.
These projects adequately represent the imagination of the contemporary world. The Znamya's project can be seen as a spectacular and far-fetched experiment destined to be forgotten, but also as a cautionary tale, representative of the state of mind of modern times and a testimony to the importance that Russia gives to its northern territories, in particular the Murmansk region.
I stayed in this region, which has never stopped trying to be illuminated by revolutionary technological means for 30 years now. I have seen many landscapes and met many people there, none of whom have, for the moment, seen a single ray of artificial sunlight.