Location: KAZAKISTAN

Every three months a space rocket carrying three astronauts and cosmonauts to the International Space Station launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. At around the same time, to the north-east in remote grasslands, three other astronauts fall back to earth. The photographs in Some Worlds Have Two Suns document these comings and goings of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and the local community whose lives are accidentally intertwined with this portal to space.

During McConnell’s first visit in 2015, as the astronauts and cosmonauts were taking part in the landing ceremony, he saw a group of locals from the village of Kenjebai-Samai who had come to witness the strange event taking place in their own back yard. Although he had initially been drawn to record the space travellers, it was the local community residing in the isolated grasslands who compelled him to return. 

‘On each visit I would stay in Kenjebai-Samai or explore further afield. The steppe, which at first appeared as a boundless void, would over time reveal unexpected details. I found a people largely uninterested in the space travellers and yet somehow bound up in this strange ritual. These descendants of nomads once again on the edge of a new horizon.’ 

ABOUT ANDREW MCCONNELL

Andrew McConnell began his career working for a daily newspaper in Belfast during the during the closing stages of the Troubles and the transition to peace. After working as a photojournalist for over a decade his work today focuses on long-form projects that explore socio-political issues, displacement, and the environment. He works in both photography and film, most recently shooting and co-directing the documentary GAZA (2019) which premiered at the Sundance film festival and was subsequently selected as Ireland’s entry to the Oscars in the Best International Feature Film category at the 2020 Academy Awards. His photography regularly features in international publications and he has received many international awards, including two first place prizes at the World Press Photo Awards, first place at the Pictures of the Year International and two Sony World Photography Awards. Some Worlds Have Two Suns is his first monograph.