MicroPET is an autonomous payload for conducting enzymatic reactions and microbial cultivation experiments in space, featuring programmable serial passaging, sample preservation, and integrated sensors for monitoring. The mission, launched to the ISS in November 2022, is a collaboration between MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative, NREL, Weill Cornell Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Seed Health to study the biological upcycling of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in a two-step system involving enzymatic degradation and microbial upcycling.
Stellar Scape Exhibition
With its deep skies that hypnotise and captivate, space holds an unrivalled fascination for the human race. At a time when the Anthropocene crisis is shaking our environmental, technological and democratic balances, the ‘Land of Night’ is in turn the last frontier to be colonised, a resource to be exploited, a tourist destination, an observatory for remote surveillance, a dumping ground for orbiting debris, and forever the infinite constellation of our original questions and (meta)physical dreams.
From the atomic fragment to the universal whole, the Stellar Scape exhibition brings together some twenty international artists, researchers and engineers to explore the imaginary world of astronomy and the revival of space adventures. Through art installations, immersive environments, scientific innovations and speculative projects, we experience this expanding starry landscape, a mirror of the cosmic link that connects us in a single space to all those things that appear not only as they are, but also as they could be.
Curation: Marie du Chastel et Jos Auzende
With Véronique Béland, Lucien Bitaux, Amélie Bouvier, Chevalvert Studio, Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves, Pepa Ivanova, Kongo Astronauts, Caroline Le Méhauté, Kyle McDonald & Jonas Jongejan, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Katie Paterson, Quadrature, Jasna Rok, Stéphanie Roland, Alessia Sanna & Alexandre Weisser, Unfold Design Studio, Jeroen Uyttendaele, Yoko Seyama, Wolfgang Bittner & Lyndsey Housden.
With the participation of European Scape Agency (ESA), Aerospacelab, Aldoria, AMOS, Latitude, Liquifer, MIT Media Lab, Space Applications Services, Spartan Space and the support of Yamaha.
About Le Pavillon
Perched on the Esplanade de la Citadelle in Namur, Le Pavillon is an exhibition, experimentation and innovation centre that blurs the boundaries between disciplines and simultaneously encompasses the arts, science and technology. Drawing on its uniqueness, Le Pavillon invites visitors to savour a new experience.
Despite looking a little like a space station, Le Pavillon does not come from Mars but from Milan. And to be more specific, from the imagination of Patrick Genard, an architect from Namur based in Barcelona.
“We imagined the Belgian pavilion in the shape of a lobe city. In reaction to the concentric growth of cities, which is seen as suffocating, the lobe layout advocates the construction of a series of neighbourhoods around the heart of the city, separated by green fingers. These neighbourhoods are independent but interconnected. This circular structure, already adopted by Berlin, Copenhagen, and Aalst, is the most eco-sustainable because it limits travel, enables a better circulation of energy flows, and reduces costs,” explains Patrick Genard.