An original creation has been unveiled at the Air & Space Show, Le Bourget, as from the 19th of June 2017. ESA is presenting an interactive story exploring the activities Clean Space is carrying out to guarantee the future of space activities by protecting the environment, on Earth and in Space.

Marianne Tricot is a French scientific illustrator who worked an entire year in creating the ‘’For a Clean Space’’ project in partnership with the Clean Space team and the TEC communication team. Her mission has been to promote Clean Space’s actions using innovative illustrative objects.

Her challenge has been to translate scientific and technological concepts into a story that everybody would be able to understand. But not only had she to ensure that a layperson audience would grasp the story, she also had to make it attractive and beautiful. And we must admit that, within the Clean Space team, we are truly impressed by the result of her work.

Clean Space interactive story

How did Marianne Tricot work to create her project?

Marianne first read a huge amount of documentation about our activities that we provided her with. She met all members of the team asking tonnes of questions; challenging us to be as specific and clear as possible in order for her to understand the activities. Most will agree with the fact that scientists and engineers might lack the skill to talk about their work with a non-expert audience. Marianne managed to understand very well our activities though despite their complexity though.

Based on these reading and discussions she started creating a story board, checking with us that the information and the images were relevant, explicit, and correct.

Clean Space interactive story _ first drawings

“The goal of this project, which is a one year experience with ESA, is to make people aware of the consequences that human activities have on space, which, in a long term, are the same as in Earth. The interactive story explains, by the use of drawing, how Clean Space tries to manage these activities. Readers can realised that it is important to adopt a clear stance in favour to Clean Space researches’’ says Marianne Tricot

‘’Creating this story was an amazing experience. I learned lots of scientific information, I discovered people, places and technologies that I wanted to share with a non-expert public. In term of illustrations, the project was for me a way of developing a whole graphic world in a digital interface using interactivity and animation’’ she adds.

The result is a beautiful self-explanatory story

The result is an interactive story that explains how Clean Space tries to reduce space debris and to develop environmentally friendly technologies. One can scroll up within three friezes – Earth, Atmosphere and Space – and discover the challenges that the space sector has to deal with in order to keep a clean and usable space for future activities and the solutions that ESA is running.

This creation is on display within the ESA pavilion since Monday the 19th of June.  Though, you should be aware that Marianne will be standing next to her project tomorrow, Thursday 22nd of June for presenting her work. Don’t hesitate to pass by to discuss with her.

Clean Space interactive story _ a tiny part of a frieze

About Marianne Tricot

Marianne Tricot is a French scientific illustrator. Graduated from the École Estienne in Paris, she created the “For a Clean Space” project in partnership with ESA in 2015/2016 for her Master’s degree. Since then, she has started her professional career as a scientific illustrator and worked for ESA, the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie and the Palais de la découverte in Paris, among others. She also practices drawing, painting and printing techniques like engraving, serigraphy, and lithography, which she uses to serve the needs of scientists and for her own interests. Her goal is to make scientific issues known to a larger public by offering creative illustrative objects. Her work can be seen on: https://www.mariannetricot.com.