In August 2019 David Roy took a cross-country motorcycle trip from Inglewood, CA to New Haven, CT. Road trips have a way of climbing into our minds and resurfacing in unexpected ways: we remember billboards and gas station meals, unfamiliar faces and unremarkable stretches of highway. On this particular trip, David was confronted with the realities of life in America: the ecological damage, economic depression, and enduring racism that marks so much of this country, alongside fading reminders of American exceptionalism and the manufactured symbols of past greatness, a greatness that for many Americans has never existed.
Yet David’s trip has informed his practice as a powerful means of thinking through contemporary American identity and its potential futures. The founder of BLACKNASA, a space program committed to peaceful and meaningful exploration, David builds rockets which reclaim the power of technology as a tool for good. His rocket launches are events which unite and inspire, and remind us of the incredibly human capacity for joy and wonder.
BLACKNASA Mission Statement:
To conduct rocket science, both technical and social;
To promote the Seven Noble Ideals of Human Space Exploration: Creativity, Challenge, Courage, Ingenuity, Perseverance, Unity, and Discovery.
David Roy is a multidisciplinary artist from Los Angeles, California. The cornerstone of his varied practice is the firm belief that art should never be estranged from everyday life. In 2016, he founded a space agency called BLACKNASA to promote the use of rockets for peaceful purposes only. BLACKNASA continues to conduct rocket science; both technical and social, through the design, fabrication, and launching of rockets, as well as interventions in public space.
BLACKNASA on Instagram
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Hyperallergic
Rocket Science as Art by Rachel Wolfe - PDF
David Roy performance
Interview group 3
David Roy
Peace Rocket, 2019
A film made in collaboration with Vanessa Haddad and Adam Gundersheimer
TRT: 9:20
David Roy
Peace Rocket III (Horus II-A) arrives at JFK Baggage Claim, March 2019
TRT: 0:07
