The idea started with a toy astronaut that had been sitting on a shelf in our studio for longer than anyone could remember. Nobody knew who bought it or when. It was just there, between a roll of gaffer tape and a dried out marker, one arm raised like it was trying to get someone’s attention.
Our model maker picked it up one afternoon and stood it on a scrap of black card. Tilted her head. Put a marble next to it. Then a smaller marble. Then she didn’t go home for three days.
The brief was simple. Build the universe small enough that one person could touch all of it. Not scientifically accurate, not the version you see in a museum. The version a kid draws when you give them black paper and some chalk. Planets too close together. Stars too big. Everything wrong in the way that feels more right than right.
Saturn’s rings were cut from a takeaway container lid. The moon was a bath bomb sanded down for two hours until it had the right texture. The stars were pinpricks in black card with a single light behind them, which sounds simple until you’ve spent an evening realising the difference between random and convincing is about four hundred holes. The surface was sand from a construction site down the road mixed with crushed charcoal, pressed into texture with a crumpled plastic bag. It looked like nothing until it dried. Then it looked like somewhere you’d want to land.
The astronaut went in last. Still reaching. Still trying to get someone’s attention. Only now there was something to reach for. Every planet just a little too far away, just close enough to believe you could get there if you stretched.
Someone asked if we should add more. More detail, more planets, more stuff. Our model maker said no. A kid doesn’t draw the whole universe. A kid draws the parts they can name.
The astronaut is back on the shelf now. Arm still up. Still reaching. But now we know what for.