After completing ‘Sometimes fire is not the answer’ (2021) I spent many months considering the similarity of the felled bird to the shape of an aerial explosion. Trailing feathers blasting out from a central point, rather like shrapnel from a bombed plane or a devastating ‘airburst’ weapon. Knowing that the next artwork in the Disintegration Series was going to be an explosion meant I had a starting point to work from but I couldn’t settle on the precise subject.

Much of that year passed before I watched William Shatner return to earth after a brief spell in space. I was awed by the horrific coldness of Jeff Bezos, preening for his choreographed photo opportunity, when compared to an overwhelmed and tearful Shatner - an embodiment of exploration beyond our planet. Aerospace engineers have long used the euphemism Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly, or ‘RUD’, to refer to a catastrophic explosion or breakup of one of their creations. Elon Musk of SpaceX has also used it in his faux-shambolic sleek press releases along the path from prototype rockets to the newest models serving the International Space Station: The same rockets he intends to load with payloads destined for the Moon and eventually Mars: To immortalise himself when his company lands humans on a second planet.

This artwork is about the guilt I feel for every vanity rocket launch I watch. A guilty pleasure where I cannot help but revel in the echoes of the SciFi future I was brought up with. Commentators all over the world rebuke Bezos and Musk for their hubris and wastefulness in the face of such a catastrophic collapse of our ecosystem. Of course I agree with them, but I also applaud the reach towards the stars. I believe that Humanity has always been fated to extend beyond Earth, because we’re just too naturally curious not to, and it is a powerful and emotional experience for me to see a rocket launch beyond our gravity. I dislike the billionaire men behind the rockets. I hate the waste and I hate the vast emissions. I recognise the unarguable logic that the money could be far better spent right now and the hubris deferred for a safer era. Cutting through all of that I watch the launches and see history playing out. In spite of myself I cannot help admiring the adventure.