David Farnor | On 16, Jul 2020

The Barbican is hosting an online Q&A this evening with Matt Wolf, the director of new documentary Spaceship Earth.

The film, which is out now to buy and rent online – including from the Barbican’s own online platform – tells the story of eight people who spent two years quarantined inside a self-engineered replica of Earth’s ecosystem, in the name of science.

In 1991, Biosphere 2 was created and became home to eight humans for two years in an experiment that became, at the time, a worldwide phenomenon. The film explores the daily life of the inhabitants as they try to prove what could be done to change the world in the face of life-threatening climate change. While they faced growing criticism that they were no more than a cult, this curious story shows how a committed, small group of people go to extreme lengths to imagine a new world.

“This fascinating chronicle of a forgotten 1990s experiment is an earnest reminder of science’s sincere potential for change,” we wrote in our review.

Director Matt Wolf will be joining the Barbican to discuss the project, along with the Architecture Foundation’s Justin Jaeckle. The Q&A will kick off at 8pm on Thursday 16th July on YouTube and will be available to watch on-demand afterwards.

Add to Watchlist