Cnes: call for projects

Call for creative projects based on the speculative archives of an art center in Earth orbit

The Observatoire de l'Espace invites artists to use generative AI to create speculative archives of an art center in Earth orbit, evoking its history and exhibitions and thus opening up the multiple possibilities of extraterrestrial art that might have been presented there and could be reactivated.

Since the beginning of French space activities in the 20th century, technical resources have been mainly mobilized around technological progress, even if a few works have been created in space with a view to being returned to Earth for public viewing. This call for projects aims to explore the possibilities of the existence of an art center in Earth orbit and to produce traces of this existence through a plastic form whose creation process will involve generative AI. It does not commit to acting as a historian, but rather to considering the archive, in this case speculative, as one of the moving and permanent manifestations of space.

This call is open to artists or artist collectives whose practice falls within the field of visual and plastic arts. The originality and relevance of the project and the use of AI in the creative process, as well as the aesthetic approach and the feasibility of the proposal, will be the main criteria considered by the artistic committee.

The selected project will be announced in January 2026. The work will be exhibited in Paris in 2026 and will become part of the Observatoire de l'Espace's contemporary art collection and will be deposited at Les Abattoirs, Musée – Frac Occitanie Toulouse.

Deadline for receipt of applications: Monday, November 17, 2025, at 4 p.m.
Download the call for projects

Since 2014, the CNES Space Observatory's contemporary art collection has brought together works from these programmes. Created by artists from all disciplines, these works are produced using materials, both past and present, from space activities. Since 2017, each work has been on deposit at the Abattoirs, Musée - Frac Occitanie Toulouse, reinforcing the fertile dialogue between the arts and sciences developed in the collections. This has given rise to a number of exhibitions on the Toulouse site and in the Occitanie region (Zero Gravity, 2018; Uncertainties of Space, 2022; And now the space!, 2022).