Unisphere

Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, NY

Note:

This high-key photograph depicts Unisphere, the iconic stainless steel globe built by U.S. Steel for the 1964-65 World’s Fair held in Queens, NY. Unisphere represents the Earth, the World’s Fair theme – “Peace through Understanding”[1] in a globally interdependent world, that a half century later is even more dependant on each other with the presence of the Internet, abundance of multi-national corporations and real-time communication to every corner on the planet thanks to satellite technology.

Unisphere was dedicated to human achievement highlighted by the reality we live in a “shrinking” world “in an expanding universe” made possible by it. The three rings represent Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s 1961 orbit, American astronaut John Glenn’s 1962 orbit and the 1962 launch of the 70 lb Telstar communications satellite that was conceived and built through American, British and French collaboration and responsible for the first live trans-Atlantic TV broadcast.[2]

In today’s 21st century world, the planet has shrunk even more because of population growth and technological evolution. Because of this, our limits in the universe have grown exponentially. Yet, challenges relevant back to 1964-65 persist when it comes to racial, gender inequality and social inequality, the elusiveness of world peace and continued challenges of clean water shortages, immense pollution problem especially of non-biodegradable plastics, hunger and disease. To address these challenges as well as that of climate change and the protection and respect for life, it is more important than ever peoples and nations put aside their differences, make just peace with each other and work together to address them, in which the latter must include consistent and uniform standards for all (developed and developing countries alike) if we are ever to succeed and put the one human race, comprised of billions of precious, indispensable individual lives that are as it is far too short, fragile and fleeting in nature, first.

I chose a perspective that included a high-key tree line to reflect the infallible reality, we live in an interconnected world that is ecologically interdependent on each other as well as our need to address climate change whether one agrees it is human-caused or cyclical in nature. As Unisphere rises above the tree line in my photograph, we too have risen from the Earth’s dirt and until we can expand our horizons to other habitable planets in the universe remain completely ecologically dependant on our planet. Thus, if nothing is done to address our planetary challenges, we along with our architecture and technology, will crumble into extinction leaving an empty, desolate and lifeless planetary legacy for others to discover millennia in the future – that’s if anything remains.
____

[1] Flushing Meadows Corona Park.. NYC Parks. 18 August 2019. www.nycgovparks.org/parks/flushing-meadows-corona-park/highlights/12712

[2] Unisphere. Wikipedia. 14 August 2019. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unisphere

Additional Source:

Suzanne Deffree. Telstar I makes live trans-Atlantic TV broadcast, July 23, 1962. EDN Network. 23 July 2019. www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4390874/Telstar-1-makes-1st-live-trans-Atlantic-TV-broadcast--July-23--1962