Guy Laliberté

“This is a book that will ultimately inspire and touch people, in regard of how this planet is beautiful… I made a choice of integrated texts, written by people greater than me, with poems and reflections, which hopefully will touch people and will bring them to look at earth maybe in a better way than they knew.”

Courtesy of ASSOULINE. Gaia is available for purchase at ASSOULINE Boutiques worldwide and through www.assouline.com

Interview with Guy Laliberté

Jessica Redmond

ASSOULINE is pleased to announce the publication of a groundbreaking new title. Guy Laliberté, founder of Cirque du Soleil, documents his experience in space in the first-ever book of photography published by a private space explorer. Featuring his photographs of Earth—as seen from the International Space Station—this evocative piece showcases Laliberté’s captivation with Earth’s surface, showing the colors and textures of 40 countries visible from 220 miles away. Traveling at 17,500 miles per hour, while making 16 tours of the earth every day, this photographer in motion and his “stable” subject made for truly original conditions.

Jessica Redmond: What inspired this project for you?

Guy Laliberté: The book project? Actually, it came very by the back door. Because I took those pictures as souvenirs for myself. It’s really when I came back on earth, I started to share those pictures with my friends and my family and I started to notice their amazement towards it. Then I brought those pictures and showed them to my friend who is a professional photographer and he told me, “Listen man, there’s something here that is very interesting.” So we evaluated the technical quality of the pictures, which were very good, and then after that I started to dream about doing a book and I had to find an editor, and this is when I met Prosper [Assouline] and we fell in love with each other. We started to brainstorm and over a period of a year we went through this project, which for me, accomplished many things. First, this is a new creative experience for me. I never did a book in my life. It’s not my creative universe usually, and it was an amazing experience really, learning how to do a hardbound book. The second thing, it’s a nice tool, it became a nice tool to raise money for my foundation One Drop, because all royalties and profit for this book will go directly to One Drop, so we’ll be able to do projects and save lives with this book. And third I think, this is a book that will ultimately inspire and touch people, in regard to the beauty of this planet. There are great pictures and I made a choice of integrated texts, written by people greater than me, with poems and reflections, which hopefully will touch people and will bring them to look at earth maybe in a better way than they knew, actually.

JR: So this project has been a few years in the making–

GL: Actually, the long part of it was the cleaning of the pictures, because when you take a picture through the window, there are window scratches and things. So I had to clean the pictures with about up to fifty scratches in it, just clean it, and I didn’t want to add to it, so it was just a cleaning job. I took 7,500 pictures and made a selection of 1,500 for the purpose of the piece, and then I had to make a selection of 80 or 82 for the big book. And that was difficult, that was probably one of the most difficult things was making the choice of the pictures.

Guy Laliberté, Kazakhstan, off the coast of the Caspian Sea, 2009. Courtesy of ASSOULINE

JR: This has been an enormous effort on your part between the space mission, coordinating the various performances and finding someone to publish the book– did you have any second thoughts along the way? Literally or metaphorically?

GL: No never, no no, you know, once you decide to embark yourself on a project like this you evaluate all the dangers and consequences, and then when you make a decision, you look forward not backward. I am not in the nature of diving in or nurturing fear. I’m more somebody who likes to invite life in and enjoy freely what I get myself into.

JR: As your last name would suggest.

GL: Exactly.

JR: And as your book’s name would suggest, is there any global or environmental message to Gaia? GL: Well there is, like I said, this is carrying on the message from One Drop, which is the situation with water. You know, this is a very serious matter and this is a very serious issue that we’ll have to address very fast as a global community. It’s the biggest cause of death in the world, one person every twenty seconds, and if we don’t take action we’ll be in trouble very soon. So, this and being an art lover in general I think is also important, because I think in the end, I’m not an activist. I, you know, I don’t take a hammer and hit on the other people. Some people need to be hit on the head but I don’t do that. I’m more uh, I have a more soft medicine approach with the way I like to talk to and touch people. That’s what I do with Cirque de Soleil, and that’s what I believe I did with the book, try to touch them in their heart, and at the end I believe that if you touch them in their hearts they will stay longer.

JR: As photographs, do these images have any symbolic meaning to you?

GL: Well actually yeah, there are different groups of pictures. If you look at the beginning of the book they are all my animals. A little bit of my state of mind in taking the pictures out there was a little bit like when you’re on earth and you look at the clouds going up and you see the animals and shapes and stuff like that. And suddenly, I started to look at earth and started see those animals and shapes and organic things like paintings. And this is really what the book is. In the book there are also very specific places, you know there are the cities and I think everybody likes to see volcanoes and clouds; but mainly the spirit in which I took the pictures was in this state of mind.

JR: Some of the images don’t even look like geography, they look like paintings.

GL: Exactly. Exactly.

JR: As an artist, what’s the next project on your horizon?

GL: Well, I’m very busy now with three new shows now for Cirque de Soleil. Actually there’s one here in New York that’s opening very soon, Zarkana, which is a big one to pull out. But finally we were able to come to New York with one of our masterpieces. This show will fit like a glove for Radio City and it will hopefully be received well, and then I have another one this summer in Los Angeles at the Kodak Theater and then the Michael Jackson show on October 2nd, so, we have a very creative, busy year.

JR: That sounds wonderful. Thank you so much for your time.

GL: My pleasure.