A Trip to Mars with Brooke Holm

When Brooke Holm was a child, she spent many hours suspended in the air over the Pacific, traveling back and forth between her parents, one of whom lived in California and the other in Australia. "I always wanted to sit by the window to catch glimpses of the world below," she recalls of her transoceanic voyages. Now a professional photographer, Holm has made a specialty of her childhood viewpoint, establishing herself as a skilled aerial photographer for her sweeping views of the Earth as seen from far above. "There’s a humbleness that attaches itself to the idea of human existence when you can look down and see how small we are, and how large an impact we have had on this planet," she adds. "Life relies on each other for survival. Especially in our current moment, it's crucial for humans to understand this connection, and, more so, act as if it were true. My ongoing work in the genre comes not only from a desire to depict the beauty of this perspective but also from necessity and urgency."

With their craters, cracks, and crevasses, many of Holm's photographs could be described as otherworldly, and she leans into that vision in her latest show, "Valle Mortis," now on view at Sage Culture in Los Angeles. In a series of harmonious pairings, Holm's shots of Death Valley find affinity with images of Mars taken as part of NASA's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, which the photographer first encountered in a book. "The photographs were so highly detailed, so textural and dramatic, and what struck me immediately were the similarities I found on Mars that responded with my own aerial photographs of Earth," she recalls. The arid desert, as seen around the hottest place on our planet, was a natural focus, she adds, given its history as a testing ground for space missions.

As NASA embarks on a new mission to send astronauts to Mars as soon as next decade and the Red Planet looms ever larger as a potential refuge from a degraded Earth, Holm says that the connections to be drawn between the two planets are more important than ever. "As a society, we have fictitiously looked towards Mars for futurity, when ironically we are looking into the past," she explains. "Mars is a planet that has undergone extensive and severe climate change. Until around 3.8 billion years ago, Mars looked much like Earth, with lakes, streams, and possibly even an ocean. At the current rate of human-caused climate collapse, the Earth is moving towards an alarming similitude. In portraying these similarities it is important to emphasize the delicate state of the only known habitable environment for human and non-human life: Earth."

For viewers, "Valle Mortis" is a full-body experience. Some works are printed on lenticular forms, with the image alternating between Earth and Mars depending on the perspective. Also a trained pianist, Holm created a soundscape to accompany the exhibition based on audio transmissions from the Perseverance rover. The full effect, according to the artist, is meant to alter perceptions. "In my work, there is a sublimity, an urgency, and an omen. This show is presenting information that combines science, technology, conceptual research, and beauty to the public in ways that are accessible and easy to understand, which is vital in shifting conversations on ways of seeing, especially in ecological art," she says. As humanity pushes its own home past the breaking point, Holm hopes that her work can offer a reminder of how much there is to be lost: "For me, working with these existential themes concerning space, time, and environments helps inform my broader understanding of where we have been, where we are going, who we are, and who we want to be in the future."

"Valle Mortis" is on view through tomorrow at Sage Culture, Los Angeles.

As a nonprofit arts and culture publication dedicated to educating, inspiring, and uplifting creatives, Cero Magazine depends on your donations to create stories like these. Please support our work here.