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In A Journey: The Near Future, artist Nicolai Howalt depicts our yet-to-be-explored red neighbor, nearly 63 million kilometers away. In a time of great technological leaps and climatic upheavals, Mars represents the next steppingstone for humanity’s expansion into space. Howalt’s work takes its starting point in the photographic panoramas captured on the surface of Mars by the NASA-rovers Curiosity, Perseverance, Spirit and Opportunity. These digital images have allowed us to view the Martian landscape in an unusually detailed, colorful and sharp resolution, but paradoxically the same digital precision makes the images almost unapproachable and unreal. We see through the lifeless eye of a robot.

In A Journey: The Near Future, Nicolai Howalt adds an element of recognizability and human presence to the extraterrestrial landscapes by converting the digital files into photographic negatives, which have subsequently been developed as black and white silver gelatin prints in the darkroom. By transforming the images from digital information to physical photographs created with light, chemistry and human hands, the images open to a sensitive gaze that is not only aimed at scientific data collection, but also at existential and historically conscious reflections.