Mars Won't Save Us by Yixuan Zeng

Gouache on paper

12 x 15 inches (unframed)

Artist Statement: 

This piece is based on the quote "Mars is a rock--cold, empty, almost airless, dead. Yet it's heaven in a way. We can see it in the night sky, a whole other world, but too nearby, too close within the reach of the people who've made such a hell of life here on Earth."

The quote inspired me because I see similarities with how Mars and space exploration is treated by billionaires like Elon Musk, as if a human colony on Mars will save us after we've set fire to our Earth and made life unlivable here. Rather than investing money, resources, and infrastructure into making life better here on Earth, these billionaires would rather fantasize about investing trillions into terraforming a new planet that is completely unhospitable to human life.