Organizer Information
The Observatoire de l'Espace is the cultural laboratory of CNES (Centre national d'études spatiales), the French national space agency. Founded in 2000 at the initiative of Gérard Azoulay, who still heads it, the unit operates alongside CNES's scientific and engineering activity with a distinct remit: to make the space domain accessible to the public through artistic practice rather than science popularisation, and to examine the place of space in collective imagination and representation.
Based at CNES headquarters in Paris, the Observatoire works with visual artists, performers, filmmakers, musicians, writers, and researchers through research programmes, publications, residencies, open calls, and public exhibitions across France. Its work is organised around two programmes, of which Avant-Poste invites artists to take space as a creative subject — and, in some cases, as a collaborator in the making of the work itself. The source states that the Observatoire has assembled a contemporary art collection since 2014 comprising close to one hundred works, including videos, installations, photographs, and pictorial pieces.
Title & Description
Programme Avant-Poste — Appel à projets de création en impesanteur (Open Call for Creation in Weightlessness), 2027
The Observatoire de l'Espace invites artists to produce a work aboard a parabolic flight on the CNES Airbus ZERO-G, which provides repeated 22-second periods of microgravity. The selected artist will create all or part of a piece during the flight — completing the work in the air, capturing material, or generating the matrix from which the final piece is built.
The call asks for a conceptual response to the experience of weightlessness rather than a literal description of it. The resulting work will be shown in a public exhibition and then enter the Observatoire's contemporary art collection. Applicants are required to consult the annex, which sets out the physical constraints of the aircraft's free-floating zone.
Theme
L'extra-terrestre (the extra-terrestrial). The call frames access to space as an experience that remains rare and difficult to communicate, one in which weightlessness places body and mind in a state that reason and language struggle to formulate, and which cannot be reproduced on Earth.
Categories
- Visual Arts
- Installation
- Sculpture
- Painting
- Video/Film
- Sound/Music
- Multimedia
Eligibility
- Open to professional artists
- Applicants must be at least 18 years old at the time of submission
- Command of French is mandatory; all texts and exchanges with the Observatoire will be in French
- The application dossier must be written in French
- Applicants must be able to attend meetings at CNES headquarters in Paris and respond to other requests from the Observatoire without budgetary impact
- Applicants must commit to the established calendar, including working meetings and all public presentation events
- A professional registration number is required on the application form (SIRET for French applicants)
- The selected artist must pass a mandatory medical examination confirming fitness to fly
Program Benefits & Awards
- Total budget of €2,500 allocated to the selected artist
- €1,000 for conception and production
- €1,500 for acquisition of the final piece, paid on delivery after final acceptance of the project
- Cost of the seat aboard the Airbus ZERO-G covered by the Observatoire
- Costs of the technical feasibility study covered
- Round-trip travel within metropolitan France to the flight campaign site
- Accommodation on site during the campaign
- Exclusive use of the free-floating zone for 6 parabolas
- Public exhibition of the completed work
- Acquisition of the work into the Observatoire's contemporary art collection
Application Fee
None
How to Apply?
By email to appels.observatoire.espace@gmail.com, sending PDF documents in a single transmission via email (5 MB max) or a file transfer platform such as SwissTransfer.
Key Dates
- Application Deadline: 5 October 2026
- Review of dossiers and auditions of preselected artists: October 2026
- Artists individually notified of the commission's decision by email: October 2026
- Announcement of the laureate: November 2026
- Technical study phase, including a mandatory meeting validating the onboard creation protocol: November–December 2026
- Parabolic flight campaign: March 2027
Location
Paris, France
Additional Details
- Selection criteria: relevance of the proposal to the agravitational condition and parabolic flight constraints; artistic quality; motivation; stylistic, thematic and formal fit with the artist's previous work; professional references; feasibility under the annex constraints.
- Transfer of patrimonial rights to the Observatoire is made free of charge.
- The work is unique and becomes the property of the Observatoire de l'Espace du CNES; no other copy or variant may exist.
- The Observatoire reserves the right not to exhibit the work or include it in the collection if the work does not reach significant results within the allotted time.
- The selection phase is unremunerated.
- The artist flies alone, on a single flight during the campaign, supervised by the aircraft crew, and must handle any audio or visual recording needs autonomously.
- Work must take place in the free-floating zone, approximately 2 × 2 metres, separated by soft netting, with floor rails fitted with straps, under continuous safety supervision.
- Lighting is four cold-white LED strips (4000K) above the zone.
- All equipment must be secured and tethered throughout the flight, particularly lithium-battery devices; liquids and gases must be hermetically sealed; blunt or sharp objects require prior protection.
- Attendance at the safety briefing on the first Monday of the campaign is required.
- Dossiers are acknowledged within 7 days; applicants who receive no acknowledgment should follow up.
- Further information: appels.observatoire.espace@gmail.com or luciehercule@hotmail.fr