I have to admit, after a particularly awful experience well over a decade ago I have deliberately avoided travelling through the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. As a result, I had no idea about the on-going (and absolutely stunning) art installation/project taking place there. I still wouldn't if it weren't for Khoi Vinh.
It's almost enough to make me want to lift my travel ban (almost). It's certainly a project that is right up my street, producing beautiful illustrations depicting what the future of Paris (and, by extension, the world) might be. There's a lot of fantastical science fiction on display, from aliens to integrated hydroponic schemes to space elevators and beyond.
The designs alone are stunning but some of the ideas also really caught my imagination. Take for instance the image above: what's going on here? Is the tree real but the environment completely micromanaged by the person shown? Is the tree fake, perhaps a hologram being manually 'updated' to show the changing of the seasons? Is he administering some kind of medication to turn back the tide of a withering disease? It's a wonderfully simple image but the amount of possibilities it contains is fascinating. I'm quite tempted to buy my own print. Or possibly pick up the final, published work when it is released.
