The new documentary Spaceship Earth is the story of one inventive, small group of people who originated as the “Theater of All Possibilities” and tried to model a more sustainable world. Living for two years isolated inside of a self-designed closed ecosystem called Biosphere 2, this group of eight entered into the unknown, hoping to re-emerge into the world with information and ideas about how to change it. Join the Museum’s Science on Screen series for a conversation with Spaceship Earth director Matt Wolf and NYU environmental scientist Andrew Reid Bell to consider the making of this superb film, sustainable models of living, the consequences of isolation, and how we might think differently about engaging with the world when the current pandemic ends. The conversation, moderated by Sonia Epstein, Curator of Science on Screen, will include clips from the film and allow time for questions from the audience.  

Watch Spaceship Earth by using this link.
Tickets: $3.99 (50% of all proceeds will support the Museum and its staff when you use this link). 

View the recording of this event here.

While this event is free, we hope you will consider supporting the Museum with a donation. Staff are working hard to fulfill our mission via remote programming. This comes with opportunities to experiment but also profound challenges. Your support is critical to ensure our work remains vital and visible to a broad public. Suggested donation: $5. Donate here.

About the participants:

Matt Wolf is a filmmaker whose critically acclaimed and award-winning films have played widely in festivals and have been distributed internationally in theaters and on television. Matt’s feature documentaries include Wild Combination about the cult cellist and disco producer Arthur Russell, and Teenage about early youth culture and the birth of teenagers. His recent film Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project is about the activist Marion Stokes, who secretly recorded television 24 hours a day for 30 years. Matt’s work in television includes the HBO Documentary It’s Me, Hilary about the Eloise Illustrator Hilary Knight. He was also Executive Producer, Showrunner, and Writer on a National Geographic miniseries I Am Rebel alongside Doug Liman. The series features 1930s crime scene photographer Weegee, the 1970s police brutality activist turned hijacker Louis Moore, psychedelic chemist Alexander Shulgin, and the hacker Kevin Mitnick. In addition to filmmaking, Matt organizes film screenings and public events, and was the Co-Curator of Film for the 2019 Whitney Biennial. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a member of the Directors Guild and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

Andrew Reid Bell is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at New York University. His primary research focus is the use of surveys, experimental games, and agent-based models to understand decision-making in agricultural development, water management, migration, and livelihoods. He was a Research Fellow in the Environment and Production Technology Division at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, DC, and was a postdoctoral research fellow at The Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he focused on developing applications for paleo-climate histories. Andrew holds a BASc in Environmental Engineering from the University of Waterloo, an MASc in Environmental Engineering from Waseda University, as well as a PhD in Natural Resource Management and a certificate in Complexity Science from the University of Michigan.

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