Sculpting the Universe: Science Fiction-Inspired Sculptures in Spaceship-Themed Art Installation

For me, this moment arrived with my second-to-last exhibition, which I still hold as the most complete representation of my work to date. It wasn’t just a gallery show—it was a scene, a story, an atmosphere pulled straight from the vast unknown that inspires my art.

At its heart, my artistic practice draws heavily from space—what lies beyond the limits of our sight and understanding. Space exploration, the mystery of the cosmos, and our human obsession with the unknown feed into every sculpture I create. Inevitably, science fiction seeps into my work. After all, sci-fi is not just a genre—it’s a way of exploring possibilities, testing the edges of imagination, and asking the questions science hasn’t answered yet.

This particular exhibition was designed as an immersive sci-fi environment, something more akin to stepping into the aftermath of a cosmic event than visiting a traditional art show. The concept evoked a crash landing site—somewhere in deep space, far beyond human contact. The setting: a dense fog, darkness pressing in from every side, and the haunting quiet of a shipwrecked spacecraft. The kind of place where you’re not sure if you’re the first to arrive or the last to survive.

The installation pulled together every medium I could control—sculpture, light, sound, and animation—into a synchronized experience. Dim, flickering lights bounced off the steel surfaces of my sculptures, arranged meticulously on podiums designed to feel like scientific workstations inside a derelict space lab. A fog machine rolled dense mist through the air, blurring edges and swallowing the space in a cold, metallic haze. Projected on one wall, animated three-dimensional shapes morphed and transformed—unknown objects from another world, still running on the failing power of the ship’s damaged systems.

Suspenseful soundscapes filled the air. Low pulsing beats echoed through the space, punctuated by distant alien noises—unfamiliar sounds hinting at life, or perhaps at the last dying signals of a forgotten civilization. The audio and visual components weren’t there to entertain—they were there to unsettle, to create the distinct feeling of trespassing into a scene where something extraordinary, or tragic, had just occurred.

And there, scattered through the exhibition like evidence at a crash site, were my sculptures: Galactic Fossils, Galactic Pottery, and Tiny Space Fossils. Together, they formed a quiet, eerie narrative about civilization, decay, and the unknowable vastness of time and space.

At the center of the installation loomed the centerpiece—meticulously arranged set of podests, each holding a single relif, slowly fading into the misty dark. Shadows and lights moved around as the video animation on the screen still played in the loop—sometimes if felt quiet real, sometimes just the fog playing tricks on the light. And always, that lingering question in the air: Did something survive the crash?

The sculptures themselves tell their own silent stories. The Galactic Fossils resemble ancient relics, but with unfamiliar forms—some parts formed organicly, other parts looking somewhat schematical as if they were mere reconstructions of fossils of which just tiny fragments got preserved. They suggest the remains of a civilization we’ll never know, one that reached for the stars and left only fragments behind. Galactic Pottery takes this idea further, resembling artifacts we might find in archaeological digs—but not from Earth. These pieces hint at rituals, daily life, and forgotten traditions from worlds no human eye has ever seen. Tiny Space Fossils, small but intricate, feel like the last surviving pieces of creatures long extinct—life that bloomed somewhere out there and vanished before we even knew it existed.

The entire scene was designed to immerse visitors in a narrative where time and space blur—where science and fiction meet. It wasn’t about explaining what each piece was. Instead, the goal was to raise questions: What are these fossils? Are they the remnants of alien life, the products of ancient cosmic events, or just projections of our own human need to find meaning in the chaos of the universe?

The concept of Galactic Fossils operates on that delicate border between scientific curiosity and artistic imagination. It raises possibilities—what if, somewhere out there, these things truly exist? Not in the literal sense of stone and metal, but as concepts, as records of lifeforms or events so ancient and distant they barely register as real. Perhaps they’re waiting, hidden in the dust clouds of collapsing stars or floating unseen in the light of distant galaxies.

This uncertainty is what excites me most as an artist. It’s the same fascination that drives astronomers to scan the skies and scientists to study the tiniest fragments of meteorites. The search isn’t just for answers—it’s for questions big enough to remind us how small we are.

When visitors walked through the fog of that exhibition, what they encountered wasn’t meant to be definitive. It was intentionally incomplete—a story cut off mid-sentence. The crashed ship, the silent fossils, the fading lights, and the suspensfull sounds—they all served as fragments of a narrative too vast to finish. The scene faded slowly into darkness, leaving behind only questions. And perhaps that’s where the real art lives—in that lingering sense of amazement about that ´possibility´.

Galactic Fossils is not just a title. It’s an invitation—to look up, to look beyond, and to imagine what might be waiting in the dark spaces between the stars. Are these fossils of ancient life or the first evidence of civilizations we’ve yet to meet? No one knows. And maybe that’s the point.

I like to think they exist somewhere, suspended in the cosmic void. Not as objects we’ll ever find, but as ideas—quietly influencing the way we think about life, time, and what it means to leave something behind.

Maybe one day, you’ll look them up. Maybe you’ll find your own theory about what Galactic Fossils might be. Maybe you’ll even start to see them everywhere—in the patterns of cracked stone, in the way metal weathers, in the lingering silence after the music fades.

The story isn’t over. It’s out there—waiting.

Peter von Hauerland

Explore my science fiction-inspired sculptures and creations here:

Galactic Fossils

Interactive Cosmos Sculptures

Art Decor Inspired by Space Objects made of sheet steel

Tiny Space Creatures