SOLAR ECLIPSE

This video installation features a panoramic simulation of an opium field interspersed with palm trees, presented across curved screens within a carbon steel structure.

The landscape is bathed in the eerie purple glow of horticultural grow lights. In controlled laboratory environments—and famously in NASA’s 'Veggie' system on the International Space Station—cultivation relies on a specific mix of red and blue wavelengths. Since plants reflect green light rather than absorbing it, this spectrum maximizes photosynthetic efficiency while discarding the 'waste' of the full visible spectrum.

Here, an artificial sun casts this characteristic pink hue over a vast, synthetic poppy field—a self-contained, man-made planet engineered solely for production. The lighting is strictly utilitarian, designed to optimize energy rather than accommodate human aesthetics. Yet, a paradox remains: despite the alien, machine-driven visuality, the entire apparatus is deeply anthropocentric. It is a total manipulation of nature, designed exclusively to feed the human demand for opium.