He has a distinctive ability to examine major global issues and events from fresh, often unexpected perspectives. From conflict zones in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the hidden lives of the Sahrawi people in Western Sahara, his work frequently highlights human endurance in challenging environments. It explores the vast, remote Kazakh Steppe, where the sparse local population coexists with the high-tech world of space travel.
The project began in after he filmed his documentary Gaza. The stark contrast between destruction and human achievement struck him. How many trips did you make and what were the challenges of reaching such a remote location? Andrew: I probably made a dozen.
They have different vehicles for either one. In summer, the Steppe is fine to drive on, so they have four by fours and we head out… maybe camp the night before on the Steppe. They know the exact time the Soyuz will land, right down to the second, and it always goes to the same location, which is a group of tombs. You can see those in the book, the two horsemen beside these tombs.
These are old nomadic burial tombs, maybe years old, so that, initially, was very interesting to me… you know, what are these? The Steppe is this unending boundless void of nothingness, just flat grassland. At first, as a photographer, it was quite underwhelming because visually, how do you make that interesting?
But here were these tombs in the middle of nowhere and it was instantly fascinating. That was always the base camp. It would enter the atmosphere above these tombs. The parachute deploys and then it depends on the wind because they can drift for 20 kilometers.
