'Exobiotanica —Botanical Space Flight-' by Makota Azuma

Artist Launches Flowers and Pine Tree 90,000 Feet From Earth

Fascinated with the fragility and strength of flowers, Makota Azuma has spent his lifetime weaving ethereal and colorful sculptures and installations, with plants as his primary medium. For his first gravity-defying project, Exobiotanica, he uprooted plants and placed them in a new kind of “nature,”— way up high in the stratosphere.

Believing the plants, at altitudes of almost 90,000 feet and negative 50 degrees Celsius, with the Earth as their backdrops, would evolve into exbiota, a word Azuma uses to describe extraterrestrial life. On his site, he described the journey as, “a pine tree confronting the ridge line of the Earth. A bouquet of flowers marching towards the sun hit by the intense wind. Freed from everything, the plants shall head to space.“

To brave the harsh trip up, Azuma and his team crafted two unique botanical forms— a Japanese white pine suspended in a metal box frame, and a bouquet of over thirty different types of flowers including orchids, hibiscuses and hydrangeas— and to fly the pieces, volunteer-run DIY space program JP Aerospace, stepped in. Known for their experiments with low cost aerospace systems, for the past 31 years, JP Aerospace has been sending everything from ping-pong balls to 3D-printed mementos, to the edge of space.

From the artist:

Plants on the earth rooted in the soil, under the command of gravity.

Roots, soil and gravity – by giving up the links to life, what kind of “beauty” shall be born?

Within the harsh “nature”, at an attitude of 30,000 meters and minus 50 degrees Celsius,the plants evolve into EXBIOTA (extraterrestrial life).

A pine tree confronting the ridge line of the Earth.

A bouquet of flowers marching towards the sun hit by the intense wind.

Freed from everything, the plants shall head to the space.