At the fourth Research Breakfast, Joël Vacheron, a sociologist, researcher in visual culture, and professor at the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL), offers a critical reflection on contemporary imaginaries of the cosmos and representations of space. Drawing on visual studies and postcolonial approaches, his talk examines the historical, political, and cultural foundations of images of space exploration, as well as the narratives they help to shape about the world and its possible futures.
By Joël Vacheron
Published on June 4, 2026
This presentation begins with a striking observation: the images produced in the context of space exploration have been the subject of very little critical analysis. Yet iconic images such as “The Blue Marble”or“Earthrise,” from the Apollo program, are not merely neutral aesthetic or scientific records. Despite their claim to universality, they represent the culmination of a worldview shaped by and for a very specific perspective.
The contribution of an original methodology, which invites us to “re-examine” images, allows us to establish a direct connection between the colonial logics inherited from the 15th century and contemporary imaginaries of space exploration. From the launch of the first satellites onward, space has been viewed as a terra nullius —a territory without masters where resources are infinite—thus extending the patterns generally applied to the “Age of Discovery” and the conquest of the West. In this regard, the U.S. space program presents itself as a vehicle for the expansion of economic liberalism, whose direct heirs are the “space barons” who, today, exert a decisive influence on global imaginaries.
This presentation explores how a decolonial approach to the analysis of space imagery can shed light on certain cultural, racial, or economic assumptions that underpin the dominant conception of space exploration. It also aims to outline some alternatives that could foster the coexistence of “pluriversal” spatial imaginaries.
Space images are never mere representations of reality: they actively contribute to the reproduction of colonial imaginaries that, even today, legitimize projects to exploit the cosmos based on the same Eurocentric assumptions. By bringing this genealogy to light, this reflection invites us to rethink our relationship with the Earth and the cosmos.
¶ Joël Vacheron is a sociologist, researcher in visual culture, and professor at ECAL / the Lausanne School of Art. His work focuses on cosmological imaginaries, visual studies, and the colonial dimensions of representations of space. He is the author of *Cosmovisions. A Visual Study of the Colonial Foundations of Space Exploration (MétisPresses, 2025). As co-founder of the Afropea Cultural Center, he also conducts research at the intersection of the arts, sciences, and postcolonial studies.
Bibliography
- Ferdinand, Malcolm, Decolonial Ecology: Thinking Ecology from the Caribbean World, Seuil, 2019.
- Kilgore, De Witt Douglas, *Astrofuturism: Science, Race, and Visions of Utopia in Space*, 2003.
- McKittrick, Katherine, *Dear Science and Other Stories*, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2021.
- Messeri, Lisa, *Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds*, Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.
- Mirzoeff, Nicholas, *How to See the World*, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 2015.
- Quijano, Aníbal, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America,” Nepantla: Views from the South, vol. 1, no. 3, 2000.
- Redfield, Peter, *Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana*, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
- Yusoff, Kathryn, *A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None*, University of Minnesota Press, 2018.
- Wynter, Sylvia, “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation,” 2003.
