Audio guide
Welcome to our exhibition celebrating the 40th anniversary of the COSMOS series and book, a major work by astronomer Carl Sagan. Here, you will learn about its history over a series of panels, videos and a variety of original artefacts. At the entrance to the exhibition you are greeted by Jon Lomberg.
Lomberg was ‘Sagan’s artist’, associate and friend from the moment they met in 1972 until the scientist’s death in 1996.
They shared a mutual passion for understanding the universe we live in, envisaging landscapes from other worlds and, above all, a fascination for the potential existence of other civilisations in the galaxy: our ‘brothers and sisters in the cosmos’, as they called them.
In his work, Lomberg created the visual means to transmit to the world all those ideas that bubbled away in Sagan’s mind, discovering in art one of the most powerful ways to bring science to the public. Additionally, in his role as a science journalist, Lomberg covered some of the high points of space exploration together with Sagan, such as the landings of the Viking probes on Mars or Voyager’s arrival on Jupiter.
In this exhibition you can enjoy works of art created by Jon Lomberg as the project’s artistic director to illustrate COSMOS, as well as the original drawings, sketches or storyboards used in the production of the series. Added to these are illustrations from other works created together with Carl Sagan, and even a few objects of a more personal nature, such as the first works that gave rise to their collaboration or the last letter sent to him by Sagan.
