Utopian and Dystopian Dreams – An Interview with Photographer Rhiannon Adam

I'll start with a confession – not a particularly embarrassing one, I think. Sometimes I dream about going into space: floating in microgravity, watching a thunderstorm from above, maybe seeing the hidden face of the Moon. I'm not talking about the dreams you have while sleeping, or even dreams you want to realize someday. I'm not a scientist or an astronaut, and space tourism will probably remain too expensive for me. This dream is more like "internal fiction" – both entertainment for lazy moments and a kind of mental workout for exploring alternative realities that might help me evaluate our actual reality. It's a fragment of utopia (or dystopia) that humanity has always used to reflect on our society from another perspective. The first person to write about "utopia" – which means "no place" – was Thomas More in the sixteenth century, though Plato's Republic is also a utopia, or maybe a dystopia.

These elements – space, but mainly fiction and reality, utopia and dystopia – were at the center of a fascinating and enriching conversation I had with photographer Rhiannon Adam, who won the Verzasca Foto Festival for her project Rhi-Entry.

For Adam, going to space wasn't just a daydream. She was selected for a private space mission designed to fly around the Moon. We're talking about the dearMoon project organized by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. The goal was to take Maezawa and eight civilian artists on a journey meant to inspire creativity and foster global unity and peace. I'm using the past tense because the project was abruptly canceled – officially due to delays in developing the SpaceX Starship that Maezawa wanted to use. When the cancellation happened, Adam hadn't yet signed the contract – with its confidentiality and non-defamation clauses. Free to speak, she created the project Rhi-Entry.

This isn't just a personal project for coping with what I can only imagine was a crushing disappointment. As you'll see in the interview, it's a more complex discussion about space as both utopian symbol and dystopian reality – about technology, truth, photography, and what's real.

Here’s a lightly edited transcription of my conversation with Adam. The full interview is available to registered users (registration is free) – sign up to read the complete conversation.